In Durham, crowds stood in line to turn themselves in for the crime of tearing down a Confederate statue.
This is fantastic. This is an entire community coming out to show they are united and willing to accept whatever punishment the law has to hand down for an act they viewed as necessary. I admire the living hell out of everyone who did this. THIS is how to protest!
This is the kind of arrest warrant you proudly hang on your wall for your entire life. Maybe even put on your resume.
I haven’t posted much about this week before today, because I was at a loss of things to say. Neo-nazis and white supremacists follow a vile ideology. Anyone committing acts of terror is horrific and disgusting, and every person injured and every person killed is an inexcusable atrocity. There were no words.
But I was told not too long ago that its important to sometimes publicly denounce the evil, even when it is blindingly obvious as evil. People who only know me from my online presence may not know my actual political beliefs, and so if they only see posts defending freedom of speech they may think I’m a secret alt-righter or something. So, I endorse and throw my heart behind the words of Argumate, who succinctly said:
exactly how much of a dickhead would you have to be to decide that the best way to boost white ethnic pride in the public sphere is to tie it to Nazis, the one group that every non-dickhead agrees were total fuckups.
can there be anything more antithetical to the supposed virtues of western civilization than this ignorant mishmash of the worst traditionalist buffoonery combined with the stupidest excesses of modernity into a giant shit sandwich of tedious fuckery that shoots its own dick off every time as a warning to others?
the punishment for this vile mediocrity should involve being tied to a chair in front of a simulated Samuel L. Jackson screaming “you dense motherfucker!” on loop for 19 hours until you internalise it and rethink your life.
to be a Nazi in 2k17 is to be so far up your own arse that your internal topology begins to resemble a klein bottle.
it is to be a failure in every possible way: morally, intellectually, strategically, tactically, aesthetically, historically.
if life was a video game then you fucked up on the first level, the tutorial that no one ever fucks up on, because no one else is dumb enough to be a Nazi; you’re the speedrun of failures.
the shitheads and the fucksticks of the world can look at your stupid face and say hey at least I’m not a fuckin’ Nazi, like this stupid wanker, and they’ll be right.
This goes for traitors and slavers as well. Tear down every monument to Confederate generals, rename every street, rededicated every building. No worship of inhumanity.
(no vigilantism though. Seriously, use due process, its far more powerful)
A Southern friend said:
The civil war isn’t my heritage. The traitor flag isn’t a banner that represents me, nor should it.
It’s a mark of shame. We shouldn’t tear the monuments down, we should move them to a museum to remind us of our collective shame as a nation.
The south has many more amazing traditions than slavery.
The south has much more to offer than monuments to war criminals.
And this friend later pointed out that most of these monuments were not erected after the US Civil War. They were put up significantly later, often funded by the KKK and other white supremacist groups, in order to protest anti-segregation laws and the civil rights movement.
despite all the punching discourse, my preferred way to deal with Nazi rallies in public spaces is still to outnumber them ten to one by peaceful locals who keep chanting “Nazis go home” until the Nazis do indeed go home.
this forms a highly visible demonstration to everyone involved that they have no base of support, and are just a bunch of whackjobs who can’t claim to represent the interests of the broader community.
good policing keeps the Nazis separated from the much larger crowd, which prevents any violent clashes between hotheads and reinforces the impression of them as a coddled bunch of morons incapable of defending themselves either physically or rhetorically.
this is actually a really withering experience to go through! once surrounded by crowd and cops they have ceded the initiative and are essentially at the mercy of the community which despises them, a community made up of people of all ages and all walks of life, secure in their safety of numbers.
it plays beautifully live and on TV, it respects the rule of law while still conveying a very clear message, and it makes it impossible for any politicians to waffle about “both sides” of the dispute.
the absolute worst approach is to have two similarly sized groups of hotheads engaged in shoving matches that allows people to “condemn the violence” and visually suggests that 90% of the community doesn’t have a stake in the fight.
And by god, it’s working! Confederate Monuments Are Coming Down Across the US. Trump, after refusing to denounce the racists, has lost two of his business advisory committees, his arts & humanities committee, and a number of businesses are removing themselves from his hotels and properties. Basically every Republican lawmaker is distancing themselves from him, and even Steve Bannon has quit. It’s a backlash like I haven’t seen in decades.
Of course, someone had to die to accomplish this. I hate that. I hate that we never seem to get anything done unless there’s an altar of bodies laying the foundation. It’s a bug that really needs to be removed from our code. But it does demonstrate what I’ve been trying to say to the antifa and other violent extremists — The way to get the bulk of the US populace behind you is to act peacefully and then have your opponents violently attack you. By driving his car into a group of peaceful protesters, that evil, disgusting excuse for a human managed to set off a political firestorm that’s reducing what was seen as a pro-Trump surge after the election to ashes.
I’m sad someone died. I would never trade a life for statues. But I’m glad to see how the country has responded. I feel enlivened and rejuvenated by this outpouring of human decency. I’m glad the monuments to terror and atrocity are finally being torn down. Good riddance. Let the white supremacists skitter back to their hateful little holes and websites as the world moves on without them.