The Four Color Media Monitor

This post reminds me of Nick Spencer’s Secret Empire, with the superhero who punched out Hitler in his first appearance suddenly spouting apologia for Nazism. And there is no cosmic cube to blame, and no prospect of redemption down the road.

Trump has been called out for his comments on Charlottesville across the political spectrum, by Republicans as well as Democrats. He has dug in on them, saying that there were some fine people amidst the Nazi groups.

You have to ask why the only people to whom he is willing to give the benefit of the doubt are Nazis, the KKK, and topless Russian autocrats.

On the one hand, we have organized groups of Nazi marchers and white supremacists converging on a city to provoke conflict, supported by militia armed to the teeth with better weapons than the police, with one of their supporters killing and maiming by driving a car into a crowd of innocent people. On the other hand, we have a much smaller number of ‘antifa’ people who get into scuffles with some of the marchers. How can you say they are ‘equally bad’? How can an Israeli, of all peoples, say they are equally bad?

Senator Tim Kaine tweeted, "Charlottesville violence fueled by one side promoting racism, intimidation, and intolerance. Those are the facts." As usual, he is wrong.

There were violent thugs in both groups, and Trump was right to condemn violence "on all sides." There were well-intentioned, peaceful protesters in both groups, and Trump was right to mention "fine people" on both sides. He specifically said that "fine people" did NOT include the Nazis or white supremacists.

The Alt Right/White Nationalists/Unite the Right/whatever protesters had a legal permit to stage their demonstration. The leftist counter-protesters had a permit to stage their rally at a different site.

The governor, disobeying a court order, revoked the right-wingers' permit before the event even started. The protesters obeyed the police order to disperse, and were leaving the area. No laws had been broken, no one had been injured, and no property had been damaged.

Then the leftist Antifa thugs showed up, and attacked the demonstrators. The situation escalated into a full blown riot. Reportedly, an African-American woman was beaten by five men, and a man crashed his car into a crowd, killing one victim and injuring others.

The media and politicians say that anyone to the right of Michael Moore is a Nazi. Therefore, they think that Trump was saying that some Nazis are "fine people." But not all Unite the Right protesters were Alt Right, Nazi, or white racists.

And the media have blamed the "Nazis" (by which they mean anyone who disagrees with them about anything), while ignoring or excusing Antifa's violence. And they demand that Trump do the same.

I cancelled my subscription to Care2 when they wanted me to sign a petition calling on Trump to exclusively condemn the Alt Right instead of condemning both sides. And they wanted him to call the car crash a "terrorist attack."

After eight years of Obama and Clinton calling every ISIS attack "workplace violence," "gun violence," or "a spontaneous protest," suddenly the POTUS has an obligation to use the phrase "terrorist attack."

Leftists want Trump to denounce the White Nationalists, just as Obama denounced BLM and Antifa.

Oh, wait...


And they want Trump to call the car crash in Charlottesville a "terrorist attack." But Obama refused to use that phrase for ISIS attacks.

And, if Trump is to blame for Charlottesville, then Obama must be to blame for riots in Ferguson, Milwaukee, and Baltimore.

Actually, Obama did denounce violence at a Black Lives Matter rally. When five Dallas police officers were ambushed in Dallas last year during a Black Lives Matter rally, he said that it was " an act not just of demented violence, but of racial hatred." And that "When anyone, no matter how good their intentions may be, paints all police as biased, or bigoted, we undermine those officers that we depend on for our safety. And as for those who use rhetoric suggesting harm to police, even if they don't act on it themselves, well, they not only make the jobs of police officers even more dangerous, but they do a disservice to the very cause of justice that they claim to promote."

http://time.com/4403543/president-obama-dallas-shooting-memorial-service-speech-transcript/

Correction/update: it appears that the Unite the Right protesters had been turned down for a permit, but the ACLU took the city to court, and obtained a court order allowing the right-wing rally. When the governor declared the rally an unlawful assembly, the police ordered them to disperse. Some protesters complied, and some may have refused to leave, insisting that they had a court order. However, even they apparently intended to submit to arrest, and did not intend to fight the police.

There are reports that the police herded the Unite the Right crowd toward the Alt Left counter-protesters.

There are also claims that a mob attacked Fields with baseball bats, that he was trying to get away, and that he accidentally crashed his car into the crowd. Hopefully, the truth (whatever it is) will be revealed at his trial. Of course, the media have called it a terrorist attack. If he had pledged allegiance to ISIS and yelled "Allah Akbar" while running over the victims, then CNN and MSNBC would be saying that his motives "may never be known."

CNN said that "there will be questions" about whether the the attack in Barcelona was a "copycat of Charlottesville."

The attack in Spain must have been planned in advance, long before the riot in Charlottesville.

And CNN wants you to think that no one ever committed a car-ramming attack before.

In November, a Muslim "refugee" committed a vehicle-ramming and stabbing attack at Ohio State University. He was inspired by ISIS propaganda urging followers to copy the truck-ramming attack in Nice, France, a few months earlier.

BTW, Tim Kaine tweeted that he was "saddened by the latest gun violence" at OSU. It turned out that the only gun violence was committed by the heroic cop who ended the rampage by shooting the terrorist. Those are the facts.

There is footage of the car-ramming in Charlottesville; it clearly shows that the driver was not trying to get away from any mob with baseball bats.

It seems that the police had made an agreement with the marchers to enter the park from the rear entrance, which would have kept them apart from the counter-protesters; but they broke the agreement and went in through the main entrance, putting them into close contact with the protesters and provoking confrontation. The police did not intervene immediately when violence broke out because the militias had major fire power; instead they waited for reinforcements.

The Daily Stormer attributed the car-ramming to 'road rage', but nearly everyone else labels it terrorism. That label would also apply to, for example, the demonstrators outside the local synagogue yelling 'Sieg Heil!'; what other purpose is there for that but to invoke terror?

The demonstrators were never denied a permit; the issue was that the permit was for a bigger park elsewhere in the City, and they went to court to be able to hold the demonstration in the smaller park where the statue was.

When the order came to disperse - after violence had broken out - the plan of the demonstrators was for them to reassemble at the larger park, not to just fade away.

The problem is the double standard. For years, we have had mass shootings, stabbings, bombings, and vehicle-ramming by people yelling "Allah Akbar," and the Progressives have labeled them "gun violence," "workplace violence," "a truck crash," and other non-political terms. But when a right-wing extremist commits a violent act, suddenly it is mandatory to call it "terrorism."