#UniteTheRight torch rally swarms student protest

i've been following this closely since and and even before Tump's election.
Fascists are winning more and more in the streets there: Berkeley, Charlottesville...

Even worse.... one killed today ..... http://social.newsinc.com/media/json/69017/32825474/singleVideoOG.html?type=VideoPlayer%2F16x9&trackingGroup=69017&videoId=32825474#.WY9Q8QLC2rs.facebook

syndicalist

Even worse.... one killed today ..... http://social.newsinc.com/media/json/69017/32825474/singleVideoOG.html?type=VideoPlayer%2F16x9&trackingGroup=69017&videoId=32825474#.WY9Q8QLC2rs.facebook

A member of the IWW, no?

admin: derailing comments removed

RIP to the person killed in Charlottesville today.

Refusing to get into the middle of this argument but it's all over social media that the dead comrade was a Wobbly. One of my twitter mutuals said that they were a friend of a friend, which is in no way an actual confirmation but that's the word right now. Obviously no one is going to be able to give a definitive identification because next of kin and other loved ones need to be informed first.

It has not been confirmed (as of 6:20 PM Eastern Standard Time-US) that the person is a member of the IWW. It is believed that they are, with the two injured protesters members of the Democratic Socialists of America.

I've no further and confirmed info at this time.

CNN is now reporting 3 dead in C'ville. No other details as I can not get the audio. only a headline.

I've heard that the other 2 deaths are from the police helicopter crash but that's only rumours right now, afaik.

Comment removed. It was in response to others comments taken down

All the derailing comments have been removed. Seriously people should know better.

This is awful, press reports I can see say 1 dead and 19 injured in the attack, with two killed in an unrelated police helicopter crash (no bystanders)

in terms of the person killed, it seems it was a woman, and the DSA Twitter account posted this containing an IWW logo, so presumably they also believe she was a wobbly: https://twitter.com/DemSocialists/status/896466084664156162

so sorry for the victims, their friends and family. Trump has basically refused to condemn the attack, making a bland comment about violence on all sides. He is such a piece of shit.

Fleur

I've heard that the other 2 deaths are from the police helicopter crash but that's only rumors right now, afaik.

Yeah, you might be right about that portrays. I seen something in The Hill and they made it seem like the surveillance chopper cops deaths were attributable to the protest.

Washington Post:

A” 32-year-old woman was killed, according to police, who said they were investigating the crash as a criminal homicide. The driver of one of the vehicles was taken into custody and charges were pending, said Al Thomas, the Charlottesville police chief.”

This is from the IWW's General Defense Committee:

We have seen the reports that one or more victims of the attack in #charlottesville were members of the IWW, and have been doing everything we can to account for our members who were there and their safety. So far, no IWW group there that we have talked to has known anyone that was seriously injured. If you have any information, please feel free to message this page.

Member or not, our solidarity and thoughts are with all of the victims of the far right violence today. Thank you to everyone who has been doing what they can to stand up to the far right and support one another, in #cville and beyond.

The sister killed by the racist/fascist is Heather Heyer. I heard she was with DSA, but can not confirm.

The pig who ran over all those comrades was James Alex Fields, 20, of Maumee, Ohio.

[quote=Huffington Post]Fields’ mother, Samantha Bloom, told the Toledo Blade on Saturday that her son had told her he was going to Virginia for an “alt-right” rally but didn’t describe it to her in detail. Bloom said she’d warned her son to be careful and to protest “peacefully,” according to the newspaper.

Bloom told The Associated Press that she wasn’t aware that the event was a white supremacist rally. “I thought it had to do with Trump,” she said. “Trump’s not a white supremacist.”[/quote]

From the pictures of the attack, there's several IWW flags so it looks like it was our bloc that was hit. I'll post any further information that I can.

The #UniteTheRight rally is an attempt to bring together all of the neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups which have been buoyed by the emergence of the alt-right. Memetic punch bag Richard Spencer is a the headline speaker, also appearing are a host of other prominent alt-right social media users.

In response to the police apparently crashing one of the Right's events, Spencer is vowing to "make Charlottesville the center of the world" and "come back here so many times it's gonna make your head spin." In any case, upsetting news about the death of a possible wobbly, and regards to anyone personally affected.

Juan Conatz

From the pictures of the attack, there's several IWW flags so it looks like it was our bloc that was hit. I'll post any further information that I can.

Apparently she was a DSA member. Regardless, what a freakin shame.

Protest in Oakland (half an hour ago):

Taking the freeway up an offramp was so easy with hundreds of protesters. CHP wail sirens but sound system is up here and no one budges. pic.twitter.com/qOh1qjm3C9— Indybay (@Indybay) August 13, 2017

Fireworks and CHP sirens on I-580.#Oakland #DefendCville pic.twitter.com/YrCBuuNsNz— Indybay (@Indybay) August 13, 2017

A few tweets are saying she was a member of both the DSA and the IWW which might explain the confusion. https://twitter.com/BSAatUVA/status/896566542913204224 has so far been the most reliable information about this on twitter.

list of solidarity demos

https://itsgoingdown.org/guide-to-solidarity-actions-charlottesville-around-world/

e2a the NYC one is listed as at 7 pm, but the link to the organizers says 4 pm, so perhaps it'd be good to double check your local listing.

oscha

i've been following this closely since and and even before Tump's election.
Fascists are winning more and more in the streets there: Berkeley, Charlottesville...

It certaintly seems like the right is getting bigger and more capable of putting people on the streets, and winning fights is only going to encourage them.
Very bad news that someone standing up to this was killed.

More on the driver who plowed into the crowd in Charlottesville:

[quote=Washington Post]The accused driver, James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Ohio, espoused Nazi views in high school, according to Derek Weimer, a teacher.

Weimer, a history teacher, said that he taught Fields during his junior and senior years at Randall K. Cooper High School in the Boone County school district in Kentucky.

During a class called “America’s Modern Wars,” Weimer said that Fields wrote a deeply researched paper about the Nazi military during World War II.

“It was obvious that he had this fascination with Nazism and a big idolatry of Adolf Hitler,” Weimer said. “He had white supremacist views. He really believed in that stuff.”

Weimer said that Fields’ research project into the Nazi military was well written but appeared to be a “big lovefest for the German military and the Waffen SS.”

“When you’re a teacher and you see one of your former students do this it’s a nightmare scenario,” Weimer said. “This was something that was growing in him. I admit I failed. I tried my best. But this is definitely a teachable moment and something we need to be vigilant about because this stuff is tearing up our country.”[/quote]

jef costello

oscha

i've been following this closely since and and even before Tump's election.
Fascists are winning more and more in the streets there: Berkeley, Charlottesville...

It certaintly seems like the right is getting bigger and more capable of putting people on the streets, and winning fights is only going to encourage them.
Very bad news that someone standing up to this was killed.

Hmm... I wasn't there, and obviously the dust is still settling on a pretty chaotic day, but it seems more and more clear that the fascists did not win yesterday. They got routed both on a tactical/street level (pushed out of the park and dispersed before the rally was even supposed to start) and an optical/pr level (swastikas and driving cars into crowds is not a good look, even to most Trump supporters).

One of the main goals of their rally was to start tying together the disparate threads of the far right, I'd be very surprised if those groups, personalities, and tendencies didn't all start blaming each other for the failures during the rally. They're certainly gonna be more disconnected from any kind of base after this weekend. I'd also be surprised if we see very many oathkeeper/3%er militia types at these rallies in the future, that link was already fracturing before this rally.

Obviously, we can't really claim that an event in which a woman was murdered and 19 people were sent to the hospital was a victory, but it is looking like the far-right were well out-organized yesterday.

This sums it up pretty well (thanks to Huli for the link):

An Influential Vet Just Put The Blame For Todays Violence Right Where It Belongs In Epic Rant

And another factoid (thanks to S. Artesian for this one):

[quote=S.A.]State legislatures in Tennessee, North Dakota, Florida have all debated new laws that would indemnify vehicle drivers who strike protesters occupying or blocking a public roadway.[/quote]

Reds, do you have any reports or videos (or whatever) that give you that impression? I can't tell one way or the other and I'd like to know your reasoning

Hieronymous

This sums it up pretty well (thanks to Huli for the link):

An Influential Vet Just Put The Blame For Todays Violence Right Where It Belongs In Epic Rant

And another factoid (thanks to S. Artesian for this one):

[quote=S.A.]State legislatures in Tennessee, North Dakota, Florida have all debated new laws that would indemnify vehicle drivers who strike protesters occupying or blocking a public roadway.

[/quote]

also NC
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2017-04-28/north-carolina-house-votes-to-protect-drivers-who-hit-protesters

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/opinion/university-virginia-uva-protests-charlottesville.html

eyewitness reports from UVA students

Workers Solidarity Alliance Short Statement

The Workers Solidarity Alliance (WSA) sends our condolences to the family, friends and fellow workers of Heather Heyer who was murdered in Charlottesville, VA on Saturday, August 12, 2017.

We further wish a speedy recovery to those injured in racist/fascist attack.

The struggle against hate and reactionary violence will neither begin nor end after Saturday’s event long fades from memory. Our struggles must be a living breathing part of the bigger fight to change society.

We join hands and raise our fists with all who struggle against racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, anti-semitism and class oppression.

Never Again! Yours for a new world!

Workers Solidarity Alliance
https://workersolidarity.org/about-wsa/who-we-are/

I'm at the San Francisco march going through the gay Castro District to a fairly sympathetic reception. Maybe a couple hundred for an event called by the RCP front group RefuseFascism.org. Now they're doing a lame die-in at the main intersection. Not terribly inspiring. I should've gone to Oakland last night.

After the mediocre Maoist-led march mentioned above, another comrade (who sometimes posts on libcom) and I eventually made our way to San Francisco City Hall for a 7:00 p.m. vigil. We got there a little early and had some nice discussions with others, who happened to be mostly older women and there were fewer of the hardened activists of the earlier event. The crowd built up to several hundred and were clearly a more diverse group of working class people, both young and old.

A trans woman with a bullhorn spoke for the first 20 minutes, until the crowd demanded that other voices be heard. The speaker balked, and the crowed -- while chanting "Black Lives Matter" -- simply moved and reformed as a new circle nearby on the Civic Center Plaza and speakers began to alternate from person-to-person, as well as breaking into civil rights-era songs. Unlike the RefuseFascism.org march and their mostly pre-printed posters, the vigil had almost entirely hand-drawn and poetic signs. Faith-based types were well represented, and although I'm a staunch atheist, their interfaith -- although secular -- messages of tribute to Heather Heyer had an appropriate solemnity and gravity to honor her memory. The earlier RefuseFascism protest simply regurgitated the same boilerplate chants they always use, which are always heavily ideological and actually almost never resonate with the occasion.

Poetic justice for white nationalist Jason Kessler: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2017/aug/14/charlottesville-rally-organiser-chased-off-by-crowd-at-press-conference-video

Make fascists afraid again

was at Union Square yesterday. there were i'd say 300 there, perhaps more, a good number i thought. good age range too. called by DSA so there was a very visible DSA presence. there were also lots of ISO lithographed signs, BLM signs and chants, home-made anti-trump etc. signs, a few Palestinian flags, and a flag of the Metropolitan Anarchist Co-ordinating Committee, of which i've never heard but I'm not plugged in. the demo was completely contained by NYPD, who also had "legal observers". there was a speaker but we on the perimeter couldn't hear. i understand that the group later went to Trump's abode but i had left by then.

while there was antifa sentiment, i thought the focus was vague and commemoration of Heather Heyer and the immediate fight against the right did not appear to be at the center of the message. but then, as i said, i couldn't hear everything. perhaps other new york libcommers can give another perspective.

From listening to Democracy Now! on a Pacifica affiliated radio station this morning:

[CORRECTION] [quote=CORNEL WEST]The antifascists, and then, crucial, the anarchists, because they saved our lives, actually. We would have been completely crushed, and I’ll never forget that.[...]The white supremacy was so intense. I’ve never seen that kind of hatred in my life. We stood there, and nine units went by, and looking right in our eyes. And they’re cussing me out, and so forth and so on. They’re lucky I didn’t lose my holy ghost, to tell you the truth, because I wanted to start swinging myself. I’m a Christian, but not a pacifist, you know. But I held back. But that kind of hatred—but that is just the theater. It’s big money. It’s big military. And it’s the way in which this capitalist civilization is leading us toward unbelievable darkness and bleakness. And the beautiful thing is the fightback. It was a beautiful thing to see all the people coming back. [/quote]

Another Charolottesville interviewee, a University of Virginia professor, pointed out:

Jalane Schmidt

. . . the two main organizers of the rally on Saturday, the so-called Unite the Right rally, are graduates of the University of Virginia. Both Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler are UVA alums

Democracy Now! broadcast for today, August 14, 2017:

Cornel West & Rev. Traci Blackmon: Clergy in Charlottesville Were Trapped by Torch-Wielding Nazis

UVA Prof on UVA's Historical Ties to KKK & White Nationalist Alums Richard Spencer & Jason Kessler[/quote]

This toppling of a confederate statue in Durham, North Carolina today was too beautiful and inspiring to not post here:

Assad's radical right admirers in Charlottesville (CounterVortex)

A Look Back at the 1939 Pro-Nazi Rally at Madison Square Garden and the Protestors Who Organized Against It

NYT gives 2 paragraphs - and a hotlink! - to redneck revolt

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/us/who-were-the-counterprotesters-in-charlottesville.html?module=subsection_us

a thing i haven't read elsewhere, they showed up with a cordon of rifles

compendium about state attempts to legalize protestor ramming

http://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/08/14/these-state-lawmakers-tried-to-make-it-legal-to-run-over-protesters-with-a-car/

from yesterday's Washington Post, by N. D. B. Connolly (professor at John hopkins University)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/08/15/charlottesville-showed-that-liberalism-cant-defeat-white-supremacy-only-direct-action-can/?utm_term=.87b8538ac807

Yet despite the rights hard won by rock, we returned to paper. During the 1970s, we covered and concealed any historically specific grievance with a general promise of “equal opportunity,” ownership, and with law and order. Under liberalism, property rights were still king. Outcry about ongoing exclusion in employment, education, and political and cultural representation were not met with redistributive programs but rather diffuse commitments to multiculturalism. We were not allowed mandatory fair employment law, but rather voluntary affirmative action. We were not allowed historically redressive policy — dare one say reparations? — but rather mere tolerance and the assertion that our greatest problem, after nearly a century of Jim Crow, was ensuring the protection of free speech, even for hate speech.

Back in May and now again in mid-August, white supremacists in Charlottesville exhibited a taste for torches. The historical theater of such displays ought not be lost on us. Lynch mobs carried torches. But they also had to carry them, because dedicated people, forcefully defending black rights, drove hatemongers to conduct their murderous work under cover of darkness.

Consider that the Klan and neo-Nazis are again out and about in daylight, wielding not so much torches as scissors. We can keep on throwing paper. Even after a couple of centuries of trying, we can keep hoping a commitment to commerce can still be the great fix. We would do well, however, to wise up and start throwing rock — public denunciations of white supremacy, clear anti-racist institution building, and fighting for policies that undo the money made off racism, especially with an ancient hatred now standing unhooded.

Segregationists have again assumed their pedestals in the Justice Department, the White House and many other American temples. Paper alone won’t drive them out. Start throwing rocks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIrcB1sAN8I

Vice journalist filming and interviewing various unitetheright participants. The guy at 19:10 is unbelievable, trying to depict Fields as the victim.

Entdinglichung

from yesterday's Washington Post, by N. D. B. Connolly (professor at John hopkins University)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/08/15/charlottesville-showed-that-liberalism-cant-defeat-white-supremacy-only-direct-action-can/?utm_term=.87b8538ac807

Yet despite the rights hard won by rock, we returned to paper. During the 1970s, we covered and concealed any historically specific grievance with a general promise of “equal opportunity,” ownership, and with law and order. Under liberalism, property rights were still king. Outcry about ongoing exclusion in employment, education, and political and cultural representation were not met with redistributive programs but rather diffuse commitments to multiculturalism. We were not allowed mandatory fair employment law, but rather voluntary affirmative action. We were not allowed historically redressive policy — dare one say reparations? — but rather mere tolerance and the assertion that our greatest problem, after nearly a century of Jim Crow, was ensuring the protection of free speech, even for hate speech.

Back in May and now again in mid-August, white supremacists in Charlottesville exhibited a taste for torches. The historical theater of such displays ought not be lost on us. Lynch mobs carried torches. But they also had to carry them, because dedicated people, forcefully defending black rights, drove hatemongers to conduct their murderous work under cover of darkness.

Consider that the Klan and neo-Nazis are again out and about in daylight, wielding not so much torches as scissors. We can keep on throwing paper. Even after a couple of centuries of trying, we can keep hoping a commitment to commerce can still be the great fix. We would do well, however, to wise up and start throwing rock — public denunciations of white supremacy, clear anti-racist institution building, and fighting for policies that undo the money made off racism, especially with an ancient hatred now standing unhooded.

Segregationists have again assumed their pedestals in the Justice Department, the White House and many other American temples. Paper alone won’t drive them out. Start throwing rocks.

wapo also has a sympathetic article today on antifascists.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/08/16/who-are-the-antifa/

has the Washington Post turned radical? ;-)

Reddit front page has a lot of anti Nazi memes and articles posted the last few days.

https://news.vice.com/story/baltimore-tore-down-all-its-confederate-monuments-in-one-night

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/charlottesville-latest-alex-jones-white-supremacist-protesters-jewish-actors-virginia-a7894351.html

Alex Jones, the broadcaster known for giving loud voice to wild conspiracy theories without providing any evidence, has claimed the KKK protesters in Charlottesville were in truth left-wing Jewish actors looking to cause trouble.

...

“I’ve been to this events,” said Mr Jones, host of the The Alex Jones Show. “They were just Jewish actors. Nothing against Jews in general, but they are leftists Jews that want to create this clash and they go dress up as Nazis.”

http://www.newsweek.com/charlottesville-police-refused-protect-synagogue-nazis-so-it-hired-armed-651260

What do people think of Lorenzo Komboa Ervin take on the situation?

"We should understand that the fascists are making their last gasp struggle in history, and it may seem that they are succeeding since Trump is in presidential office and has a gov't packed with white supremacists, corporate fascists, christian fascists, and other right-wing fascist elements.
However, we must understand this historical moment deeper: This is also a period when fascism, the expression of degenerated capitalism, can not only be defeated, but we can have a social revolution which can wipe out this capitalist system itself forever. This is truly why we must fight, we have a world to win!"

Lorenzo is a nice guy, but still trapped in the 60s/70s (i.e. too many quasi-Marxist rhetorical flourishes, like historical stages)

klan calls rally in durham, one guy shows up. maybe.

https://latest.com/2017/08/see-it-kkk-plans-rally-anti-hate-protesters-shouting-no-trump-no-kkk-no-fascist-usa-show-up-instead/