sovay | Shifting scales, salt and ash heaping high in my palms

I was away from the news for a bit. I checked in with Facebook and found out there are torch-wielding neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. Counter-protesters are students at University of Virginia. I'm trying to find an article as opposed to Twitter which I am not on.

I am behind the news cycle, I know, I know. I have just asked

spatch (who is on Twitter) in perfect seriousness, "How bad is this? Are we talking cross-burning? Are people getting killed? Are there police? Which side are they on?" These are not reasonable questions to have to ask.

Richard Spencer is on the scene, apparently. I can think of nothing more appropriate than for one of his Blut-und-Boden-chanting goons to wave a torch too close to that paramilitary hair of his, slicked back so attractively, as all sorts of mainstream news sites marveled last year. Go on, make your Auschwitz ashtray jokes when your great white hope is a smudge pot in a pseudo-dapper suit.

[edit] I can't even find it funny that the torches were tiki torches. I hope the police protected the counter-protesters. If they didn't, I hope they do tomorrow. I hope there are more counter-protesters than neo-Nazis. This is not a reasonable place for a country to be.

[edit edit] I'm sure I'm not helping the discourse, but when I read that one of the protesters' slogans was "Jew will not replace us," dude, I would replace you with lawn flamingos in a hot second. I would replace you with broccoli. I would, now that you press the point, replace you with just about any other available ethnicity, because while anti-Semitism is by no means unique to white people (as I was inopportunely reminded), right now I don't see a lot of, say, Latinx hate speech torch mobs parading around the cities of America, celebrating genocide. I would replace you with tiki torches. They drive off whining, bloodthirsty pests.

In the meantime, I'll get back to my global conspiracy of trying to fall asleep tonight.

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I hope the police protected the counter-protesters.

A friend of mine, a former police sergeant, noted that the difficulty of policing confrontations between the National Front (our 80s era Neo-Nazi party) and the Anti-Nazi League, was timing your ducking so that you didn't get in the way of the punches thrown by the guys from the ANL, but did get in the way of those thrown by the Neo-Nazis.

I would replace you with tiki torches. They drive off whining, bloodthirsty pests.

Gets my vote!

A friend of mine, a former police sergeant, noted that the difficulty of policing confrontations between the National Front (our 80s era Neo-Nazi party) and the Anti-Nazi League, was timing your ducking so that you didn't get in the way of the punches thrown by the guys from the ANL, but did get in the way of those thrown by the Neo-Nazis.

I can see that being tricky! I just think that's part of the job. I'm seeing reports now that the police didn't help until counter-protesters had already been hurt. That is not an acceptable form of policing. (I know there are a lot of unacceptable forms of policing in this country. This one just feels like a particularly keen double standard.) The people with the torches and the hate speech were the ones breaking the peace.

Gets my vote!

This is the latest news I can find. I can't tell if declaring the rally an unlawful assembly has actually stopped it from happening, or just stopped it from happening in the planned location, and in the meantime more people got hurt. It does look like the neo-Nazis were outnumbered. I'm sure it feeds their persecution fantasies, but that's the ratio I prefer. Massively outnumbered would be best. No neo-Nazis would be ideal. Who knew Nazis were like cicadas, you have to punch them every eighty years?

One of the articles I read suggested the neo-nazis were dispersed from Emancipation Park with tear gas and out past the anti-fascist protesters, where violence occurred, then about 200 of them ended up in another park, where they had a collective whinge session.

The car attack was apparently (eyewitness tweets from one of the organisers) against a completely separate march by anti-fascists that was nowhere near the neo-nazis.

There are times I'm embarrassed to be white but then I remind myself that I have both Jewish and Romani ancestry...........

There are times I'm embarrassed to be white but then I remind myself that I have both Jewish and Romani ancestry

I didn't know about the Romani!

I think it is fair to acknowledge whatever white privilege you have—and find whatever ways you can to leverage it against racists—and acknowledge also that it doesn't make the other things untrue. In other news, intersectionality remains complicated.

One paternal great grandad was full blood Romani born in a vardo somewhere down in the West Country which makes me Didaki (part Romani)

It always was!

I would replace you with broccoli.

Broccoli would be far preferable.

Broccoli would be far preferable.

Well, I had to pick something I didn't like . . .

Broccoli substitution would also increase the collective IQ of the marchers.

Replace them. Replace them with raw strips of green pepper. Replace them with jars of mayonnaise that were left out open on the counter. But replace them, replace them, replace them with something less vile.

I don't know how we are going to replace them. Very little idea what to do to help out here. I'm hoping that they'll be scared off from Boston by counter-protestors showing up in droves to laugh at them and deny them. Boston isn't the country as a whole.

Can we start a demeaning nickname for Spencer? So far I've got:

Dumpy Tweed Guy
Tiny Oswald Mosely (too obscure to catch on)
The Mole Man
Fashy Dick
Baby Brylcreem
The Nazi Punchbuggy
The Man with the Bunghole Mouth

[edit] The Maceable Face.

Check it out! One tiny bright spot amid much horror is this shot of Richard Spencer being put on his face and zip-tied by the police. I hear he was also maced. If they have to mace anybody, I'd rather it were him. https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029449591

Replace them with raw strips of green pepper. Replace them with jars of mayonnaise that were left out open on the counter. But replace them, replace them, replace them with something less vile.

It can't happen fast enough.

I don't know how we are going to replace them. Very little idea what to do to help out here.

Having a government that condemns them instead of nodding, winking, and dogwhistling would help a lot. Failing that, I am hoping the law at the local level is willing to step up and nail them to the wall. I should perhaps feel cynical thinking this, but the car-ramming victim's identity was announced and the first thing I thought was: she looks white. She's young. She's female. She's conventionally attractive. The article doesn't mention that she's Jewish. Maybe she will look like enough of a shocking, unacceptable, one-of-us victim that the neo-Nazi in the car won't get away with it. Anything that helps.

I'm hoping that they'll be scared off from Boston by counter-protestors showing up in droves to laugh at them and deny them. Boston isn't the country as a whole.

No, but it's not a meaningless outlier, either. Scaring them away from the city would prove it could be done. Would do active good. Especially if the Boston police are willing to do their job like the Charlottesville police kind of weren't.

The Maceable Face.

I am reminded of this gif.

One tiny bright spot amid much horror is this shot of Richard Spencer being put on his face and zip-tied by the police. I hear he was also maced. If they have to mace anybody, I'd rather it were him.

I hadn't heard about the zip-tying! He reported being pepper-sprayed in this article, in which he was described as "shirtless and damp-looking," a mental image I may need therapy to move past.

Shifting scales, salt and ash heaping high in my palms

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