Five days ago, hundred of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and their ilk descended upon Charlottesville, VA, population 49K, to protest the removal of a civic statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Another group came in to protest the protest. A neo-Nazi drove into the crowd of anti-protesters, killing one, injuring 19. A helicopter holding 2 policemen crashed. These are the facts as I read them, and I'm at a loss to understand why there is any controversy over it. Violence was perpetrated by a person who belongs to a group that espouses racism. Violence was perpetrated in the name of that hatred. That's what happened.
And yet, there is controversy.
People talk about free speech: okay I get it, the neo-Nazis have the right to protest. But why do they have the right to protest in someone else's back yard? Is the statue federal property? Is it art? Does it belong to anyone but the people of Charlottesville, VA? Did the protestors actually attend City Council discussions and raise protests then? Did they even have the right to do so? I don't know, and the people defending these haters don't say. Because, the reality is, the reason for the rally was not to protest the proposed removal the the statue. The reason was hatred, hatred that the Confederacy does not exist, that there are people who do not want to glorify that ugliness, that people of color have rights, however those rights are abused and denied in this culture. The rally was not about free speech, it was about muscle flexing.
Still, let's say it was about free speech. Next, we have the free speech of the counter-protestors. Did they attack the neo-Nazis? Did they run a car into them? Did they kill anyone? Not that I've heard. Did they have a right to come in and protest? As much right as the white supremacists had to hold their rally, I'd guess.
It seems to me that the basic tragedy is that people are taking their battles into innocent people's homes. Charlottesville, VA, did not ask for this confrontation. The other tragedy is that people are not listening to each other, but instead are actively ripping into each other. That being said, I not-so-respectively disagree with Not-My-President, who says the violence came from Many Sides. Who started it? The white supremacists who held their rally in a space where they were not needed, wanted, or invited, from what I can tell. Who killed and injured people? A white supremacist. Who defended that action? White supremacists.
And....old friends, neighbors, and people I care about. And that is the reason for this post. I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that people I care about could hold views so diametrically opposed to mine, and that they could argue so speciously for those views. One person actually claimed that neo-Nazis and liberals hold the same core values. (I'm still waiting for an explanation of that statement. Bigotry and racism were never core values of any liberal I met.) Others go back into history and say the United States was founded on racism and has a long and not-so-proud history of that. Granted. But, the United States has also a very proud history of fighting for people's rights (not to mention the climate, but that's a rant for another post). And, while one can claim that all wars are economically based, I will always believe that one reason WWII was fought was that Nazism as espoused by Hitler and his thugs is evil. Lord knows, victims of the Holocaust paid that price, and the United States would never had said, as Not-My-President says, that there were faults on both sides. To find that evil resurfacing in my country is...I don't have the words. Unconscionable, frightening, heartbreaking. Wrong.
But okay, let's say that those apologists are right. Hell, they ARE right. Our history is tainted. People have a right to free speech. People have a right to defend themselves. I get it. BUT...Where does that make it okay for someone to drive into a crowd of people who hold different ideas? When planes were diverted into the Twin Towers, we called it terrorism. And it was. When a neo-Nazi drives into people protesting against white supremacists, what do we call it? I'm not sure. The apologists for that action are not sure. Domestic terrorism, I'd say, in a normal place. But my country is not normal.
There, I said it. Our lives under Not-My-President and his white supremacist supporters and his climate-denying cabinet and his Republican Congress are NOT NORMAL. We are spending our energy fighting battles that are precipitated by insanity, On Many Sides, as 45 would say. The many sides of the insanity include the science deniers, the bigots, the greedy haters. Their insane Many Sides are driving the national debate, are turning us away from factual issues like Russia's involvement in the election hacks, like 45's conflicts of interest, like his treasonable use of social media to share confidential information. And in this climate, we have the resurgence of anti-Semitism, the violence and fear caused by anti-Black and anti-immigrant sentiment. It's too complicated to say that this has happened because of this president or that president. But, it's clear that 45 is not the man to unify this country: he built his platform on hate and disunity, and there is no reason to believe that he does not hold with those opinions still.
I should be angry. I should be fighting the good fight. But I'm not. As I was in November, I am heartsick. I'm heartsick when people I used to like say "gee, if you're gonna criticize me, I don't want you to be my friend." I'm heartsick when people whom I respected for researching their opinions are now using that research to obfuscate and attack and divide....and hate. I'm heartsick when I visit the national parks and realize that heritage is under siege, that the property owned by the people will likely belong to the 1%, and the resources the lands hold will be squandered while their uniqueness is destroyed, the rest of the world following.
And all I can do right now is to stand, as much as possible, with those who, in their flawed and beautiful ways, are fighting the good fight. If ever there was a good fight, the fight against bigotry is that.
