There is no Alt-Left movement. Alt-Right was self naming.
The rally was organized by Jason Kessler and called “Unite the Right.” The deplorable were invited.
The antifa people showed up in response to a gathering of white supremacists.
What is antifa?
Antifa is short for “anti-fascist.” It is a loosely organized coalition of protesters, left-wing activists, and self-described anarchists who vow to physically confront “fascists” — meaning anyone who espouses bigoted or totalitarian views.
Dana R. Fisher, a sociologist who has studied protest movements in the United States for decades, said she’s come to view Antifa protesters as a militant response to the rise in visibility of white nationalist organizations since Trump’s election.
“Violence begets violence,” she said. “One of these groups is coming out with this violent message of hate, and the other has responded with a violent, reactive message.”
President Trump and Corey Stewart both need to be honest about who was there and who started the violence. I watched 45 minutes of the torch march on Friday night. There is no doubt in my mind who started tings. Antifa wasn’t even present Friday night–just a few college students who encircled Mr. Jefferson’s statue. Some of them had the living hell beaten out of them. One campus librarian had a stroke because of injuries he sustained.
Trump and Corey, you need to revamp your message and base it on truth.
To be honest with you Moon I agree with you when you say there is no Alt-Left movement because the ‘alt-left’ is now the mainstream left. The Democrat party has moved so far left that there is no longer a radical spectrum or faction of the party. The radical faction of the Democrat party which includes the extremely violent fascist Antifa group is no longer considered ‘radical’; it IS the Democrat party.
Over the past several years these radical leftist and anti-Semitic groups like Antifa and the @womensmarch have been mainstreamed, normalized, legitimized, supported and endorsed by Democrats, their leadership and much of the media. So much so that Antifa and their ilk are no longer considered to be ‘extreme’ but rather share the ideals and values of the mainstream Democrat party.
Look at the @womensmarch for example:
* Chuck Schumer glowingly referred to them as “part of the grand American tradition”.
* Nancy Pelosi happily cheered them on and congratulated their “courageous organizers”.
* Senator Gillibrand gushed about them in a Time article saying that “the women’s march was the most inspiring and transformational movement I’ve ever witnessed in politics”.
* Valerie Jarrett referred to one of the leaders as “a leader of tomorrow” for the Democrat party.
* The Obama Administration referred to them as a “champion of change”.
What they stand for and some of their views which have never been denounced by any Democrat that I know of including the highest ranking members of the Democrat party:
* One anti-Semitic leader of the group wrote “Nothing is creepier than Zionism”.
* They praise and support Shariah law, oddly enough, considering they claim to be feminist.
* Referred to another Muslim woman activist, Hirisi Ali, who speaks out against the mistreatment of women in some Muslim communities as “not a real woman” who should “have her vagina taken away” (Ms. Ali was a victim of genital mutilation as a child in Somalia which is one of the reasons she speaks out against the mistreatment of women in some Muslim communities).
* They sent out warm heart-felt birthday wishes via their official Twitter feed to Assata Shakur saying “Happy birthday to the revolutionary #AssataShakur!”. Ms. Shakur, aka Joanne Chesimard, is a convicted cop killer who escaped prison, fled to Cuba, and is on the FBI list of most wanted terrorists.
* When confronted about the warm b-day wishes to a convicted cop killer the @womansmarch organizers responded by putting out a statement saying “Our power – your power – scares the far right. They continue to try to divide us. Today’s attacks on #AssataShakur are the latest example”.
* The organizers also have long been singing the praises of Fidel Castro, who sheltered the fugitive cop killer from justice, posting such statements as “R.I.P Comandante! Your legacy lives on!”.
* In November of last year one of the organizers posted a comment saying “When you throw a brick in a pile of hog, the one that hollers is the one you hit” referring to violence against police.
* They praise the attempted mass killing of police officers sending out a message in support of a convicted Black Panther member in the attempted slaying saying “Love learning from and sharing space with Baba Sekou Odinga”.
* They praise and admire probably one of the most notorious anti-Semitic figures in the US, Louis Farrakhan, sending out messages via Twitter and Instagram with a picture of them with him saying “Thank God this man is still alive and doing well”. This is the same man who referred to Hitler as “a very great man”, called Judaism as a “gutter religion” and they praise and admire him.
* They co-organized the ‘DykeMarch’ earlier this year in which they banned gay Jews from carrying a rainbow flag with the star of David on it.
When you have a group as openly anti-Semitic as the @womensmarch is and they get praised and held up as the future of the Democratic party by party leaders including the Obama Administration, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi you have now crossed over in these radical groups no longer being radical but the mainstream of the party as a whole.
I think you don’t know what you are talking about. @ Richard
I would try making smaller points. That’s way too much of a copy.
Most of your information is wrong and has been lifted from alt-right sites.
MoonHowler,
I wasted my time documenting that weeks ago.
Robin Hood,
Hello Robin Hood,
I’ve been a bit busy lately with work and school and must have missed you post about this subject weeks ago. Can you point me in the right direction so that I can take a look? If any of the statements I made were untrue I’d be happy to go back and retract them.
MoonHowler,
I would try making smaller points. – agreed 🙂 however, I knew that if I only provided a single or handful of examples it wouldn’t be enough proof.
Most of your information is wrong and has been lifted from alt-right sites. – that is actually incorrect. Not most but ALL of the information that I cited was lifted from a NY Times article titled ‘When Progressives Embrace Hate’.
Ok, I finally got time to read….Barbi Weiss is an opinion writer. She is also very politically Jewish. She expressed her opinion.
My apologies for attributing your comments to ALL alt-right. Perhaps Alt isn’t even correct, but definitely right is.
I don’t really care who orchestrated the women’s march. It was highly successful and energized women from ally walks of life and all political persuasions. It certainly wasn’t anti semitic.
Do progressives embrace hate? Pretty much so. However, how do most of them handle it? I consider myself progressive. Your mother is progressive. I guess we hate or dislike just like everyone else. I doubt that we get in our cars and run people down, however.
When it comes to Antifa I would disagree with the article that says they are a “loosely organized coalition”. They are very organized especially on college campuses all over the country and they are just as anti-Semitic as the @womensmarch no matter what they state in their ‘mission statement’.
The extremely anti-Israel, anti-Jew BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanctions) movement is nothing new on college campuses in this country but they have been growing at a frightening pace the past few years and now are joining forces, combining and organizing with various Antifa groups all across the country. To simply dismiss these violent, anti-Semitic groups joining forces as a “loosely organized coalition” is a very dangerous statement.
The women’s match was not anti-semitic. Please stop saying that. It represented many different women’s groups. You don’t get to define a women’s march on this blog.
I think Antifa is a bunch of thugs. However, there is no moral equivalence with KKK or Nazis. They haven’t killed 10 million people.
MoonHowler,
Don’t confuse him. His mind is already made up.
Instead of useless jabs at each other I invite you to change my mind. If anything that I said is wrong please feel free to point it out. If I’m wrong I’m wrong, wouldn’t be the first time and won’t be the last and would eat crow if I had to.
Richard Hurtz,
I am pretty sure I called your attention to it at the time. You referred to a Juan Zarate interview on the Today Show that was posted on an alt right website and mixed facts with opinions.
I really don’t have time to hunt it down because of the time involved. The issue was the assertion that what were really interpretations were presented as common knowledge as part of a blame Obama diversion.
Robin Hood,
Huh? So, I’m completely wrong about everything that I’ve asserted but you just don’t have the time to prove it?
Listen, I’m not here to take jabs at anyone but if you’re going to insinuate that I’m wrong then at least let me know why I’m wrong instead of your typical inane comments. I’m honestly asking you to point out where I’m wrong, why I’m wrong and direct me to something/anything that shows me.
Like I said, if I’m wrong I’m wrong and will admit it. So, lets start this over Robin Hood… I provided so much evidence that I was told such a long post was counterproductive. With that amount of material I stated it should be quite easy to prove me wrong or provide a substantial argument instead of trite rebuttals.
He didnt say it was too long, I did. No one has the time to sift through that many points. I am not saying you were wrong about all of it. My eyes glazed over.
Want honesty–most people read the main points on a blog and move on. There was simply too much there.
Richard Hurtz,
Maybe, but I think these social issues are a distraction from what really matters, the economy. I proved it before and you don’t get to tell me to backtrack. I have a life to live.
MoonHowler,
You’re right Moon and sorry for the confusion I should have been more specific because when I went back and looked at it I can see what you’re saying. I wasn’t saying that the “Women’s March”, the event, is/was anti-Semitic and apologize if that is how it came across. My mother, life long die hard liberal Democrat, attended the one in D.C. and is in no way anti-Semitic.
When I mentioned the “Women’s March” I was speaking of the four main organizers and their official Twitter handle @womensmarch
Also, I’m not saying that Antifa, the BDS movement or @womensmarch is the moral equivalence to the KKK or Nazis but what I am saying is that they do share some of the same views. All of them have anti-Semitic views as one of their base beliefs as well as support and/or participate in violence with anyone who disagrees with them.
I know nothing about @womensmarch.
What evidence do you have that antifa and BLM are anti semitic? I don’t think that they are organized centrally enough to have anti semitism as a core belief. Furthermore, why would they? I am not buying that for one minute.
Now, do I think that many who take to the street under both of those “banners” are violent and come spoiling for a fight? Oh hell yes. Its like the wild west when they come to town. However, in Charlottesville, I don’t think they would have been there fighting if radical hate groups had not come to town.
I have to ask myself this though…what would have happened in the 30’s if anti hate groups had battled some of those Hitler groups and exposed them ? How many more people would be alive today? Its in the millions. I think NEVER AGAIN should be the expression of the day when Nazis come to town.
I hate the KKK too but I believe they are headed towards obsolescence and are fairly irrelevant. Nazis killed millions. They absolutely cannot get a foot in the door. furthermore, why on earth do Nazis care about statues. That’s a ruse.
MoonHowler,
What evidence do you have that antifa and BLM are anti semitic? – I mentioned BDS, not BLM in my post. The BDS movement is an openly anti-Semitic movement which looks like Block, Divest and Sanction Israel because of what they believe is Israel’s ‘occupation’. They harass Jewish student on college campuses all over the nation and at time physically assualt them. They are now organizing and joining forces with Antifa.
The KKK was started by Democrat Nathan Bedford Forrest and was used as a militant force to serve the interests of the Democrat party. The same thing is happening now with Antifa, BDS and various other militant Democrat groups.
KKK–absolutely not true. It started as a college prank and later was used locally as vigilante law, esp when areas were under martial law.
Pretty much all white southerners were Democrats but to say the KKK was used by the Democratic party is just a quantum leap. I might remind you that those same folks we are calling Democrats are now Republicans.
Sorry, I misread the BDS thing. Never heard of them.
I don’t think Antifa is a Democratic group. I would say they are libertarian if I had to pin a party on them. On the other hand, we don’t know how they vote or even if they vote. I would prefer to talk about them for how they behave, rather than guess at how they vote.
MoonHowler,
I don’t think Antifa is a Democratic group. I would say they are libertarian if I had to pin a party on them. – I would respectfully disagree with you on this point. They are the very progressive faction of the Democrat party. The ones originally called ‘alt-left’ by Clinton supporters during the 2016 presidential primaries (re: Joy Reid, Joan Walsh, etc.) and ‘Bernie Bros’ – another term coined by liberal Clinton supporters to slander Sanders supporters.
Also, according to one of their own organizers…
“There are people who were energized by Bernie (Sanders) that now are anarchists,” said an organizer of the website It’s Going Down, a newsblog for Antifa. – according to a CNN article ‘Unmasking the leftist Antifa’.
The big problem here is that Bernie isn’t a Democrat.
I certainly wouldn’t say that Nazis are Republicans nor would I saw Antifa participants are Democrats.
The only person I have heard use the word Alt-Left was Trump.
There will always be anarchists. I expect that many of the white supremacist groups are anarchists.
any of
I stand by Antifa not being a Democratic group. You are talking about them like they have their own caucus. Many of the Bernie-ites took their marbles and went home, refusing to vote. I hope they are enjoying Trump now.
Pretty sure this won’t be happening any time soon.
Stewie on CNN (lot of mutual bloviating): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1mvnwOLDbY
NorthofNokesville,
Speaking of bloviating, you now stand corrected on the previous thread.
Robin Hood,
Snore… got bored of that one, but thanks for letting me know.
NorthofNokesville,
So you get bored when you get caught misquoting someone? As the one who was misquoted I am offended.
Thanks. I put up another post. Corey’s manners really need to improve. I am sure his mother and wife are embarrassed.
MoonHowler,
Tactically, he’s actually playing it well for his campaign. CNN is a sort of joke, certainly one of the more left-strident outlets (along w/ MSNBC) in the same way Fox is on the right. So he’s getting his name out there as the presumptive front-runner, take licks from the right folks, and earning media. Is it good for PWC? No. But that hasn’t been his yardstick for a long, long time.
IF EVER!!!!
Here is a blog post called “How to know you’re in a mass-hysteria bubble” by the author of the Dilbert comic strip.
It is both funny and apropos.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/164297628606/how-to-know-youre-in-a-mass-hysteria-bubble
Do you really think Russia -gate is a hoax? I think we will find out much more.
MoonHowler,
They have to say that to avoid admitting that they made a big mistake.
MoonHowler,
Hoax is a very strong word. If there is one thing I have learned, it is to never state that a politician “would never do that.”
But the evidence sure does not support collusion at the moment. With the rampant leaks taking place in DC, if there was compelling evidence that would make Trump look bad, surely it would have come out by now.
The simplest explanation is that there is little evidence of collusion. As a guy in a highly technical field, I have learned that the simplest explanation is almost always the correct explanation.
Kelly_3406,
You may not be old enough to recall the Nixon cover-up. It lasted three years before they got to the bottom of it.
Robin Hood,
Valid point. But in the case of Watergate, there was an actual crime to investigate. The “burglars” were arrested and there was a valid reason to investigate who was behind the break-in.
Today, there is no evidence that a crime was committed. The analysis by Crowdstrike that “proved” the Russians hacked the DNC has been discredited.
I did my time in NATO to deter the Russian Bear. After the Wall came down, I was amazed that American companies were encouraged by the US government to do business with the Russians. Business relationships were forged and partnerships established.
So it seems unfair to make a big deal about friendships and connections to the Russians without credible evidence of nefarious activity.
Nevertheless, I am sure that Mueller will take a scalp. He will squeeze until he catches someone in a lie and then convict for obstruction of justice. That seems to be the general modus operandi for cases like this (e.g Scooter Libby).
Kelly_3406,
Don Jr. left an email trail that is worth investigating because of the way the meeting was pitched to him if nothing else. They have it in writing!
If there’s nothing there then Trump will be vindicated by the investigation. On the other hand, he acts like someone who’s got something to hide.
The possibility that Russia interfered in the election is a national security problem and that’s worth checking out. We can’t trust anyone who would put party above country. Even Nixon didn’t do that.
No more smoke, please.
Agree with you on Russia situation. Something just isn’t right. It must be investigated.
I think someone involved with Trump has done unscrupulous things with Russia. I will stay tuned.
Robin Hood is right about it taking a long time to unravel Nixon. I didn’t even hate Nixon. He actually did some things I approved of. (and also a bunch of things I didnt approve of)
Speculation about premeditation and possible conspiracy just went off the charts.
Link: http://bit.ly/2wlIejw
Getting uglier as truth outs. Also notice how some alt-right groups are disavowing. They know the legal hammer could come.
I am having a less than pleasant discussion with someone on FB right now….they are obsessed with hammering Antifa. I don’t like that group either but I also know they didn’t start it. I don’t understand why I have to tell an adult that Nazis and KKK are unAmerican and stand for ideology.
I pretty much feel like I am undergoing
at the moment. I support the cville statues staying put. I always have. Not sure that is possible now. However much I want monuments to stay, I sure am not going to support the kkk and nazis just so it will happen. Statues are bronze depictions of people, animals and things. They aren’t worth selling your soul over.
MoonHowler,
Steve Bannon said that fighting over Confederate monuments deflects support for the resistance. People need to wise up and understand when they’re being played.
Statues are bronze, marble and other materials. They can’t hurt anyone I will fight with my checkbook. I am too old to take to the streets. I probably wouldn’t over that anyway.
I will be watching the politicians very closely. There are a whole hell of a lot of progressives like me out there who feel similarly. Right now I would be interested in a 3 party system. I am not real happy about a political party that has made me feel like if I don’t agree with them on everything, then I am a Nazi. I am very much for a big umbrella and I see a parasol.
There is no Alt-Left movement. – the term was actually first used by MSNBC host Joy Reid and MSNBC contributor Joan Walsh to slander the Bernie Sanders supporting faction of the Democrat party during the presidential primaries. It is not a term that President Trump or Corey Stewart made up.