Charlottesville

Thing just keep going from bad to worse.

I admit that I've been a bad boy. I've haven't done any posts because they're too depressing but I can't let this one go by.

The background is a slow but steady movement to tear down monuments to the Confederacy across the south. The complaint is that they glorify the defense of slavery and slavery itself. The defense is that they are simply representative of "Southern Heritage."

You know, like lynchings and Jim Crow laws.

There is a statue in Charlottesville Virginia that some people want taken down. White Nationalists, including Neo-Nazis and the KKK, emboldened by a Trump White House, rallied in solidarity to protest any removal of Confederate monuments.

Left Wing elements, including Black Lives Matter and a group known as Antifa (Anti-fascist), rallied to counter protest.

Now, I wasn't there; I'm too old for that sort of stuff, so I really don't know what went on and neither do I care. When you put two such groups of people together there are going to be sparks, fist fights and flying debris. The Charlottesville police force would probably quickly find itself out of ideas for keeping things under control.

That seems to be just about what was going on but then something else occurred. A 20 year old right wing supporter from Ohio drove his car into the counter protest crowd killing one women and injuring 19 others.

He's been arrested and is being held without bail to face a 2nd degree murder charge in addition to a dozen or so other charges.

This reminds me of the 1960s and the Civil Rights and Vietnam War clashes but it's different, Those were conflicts surrounding mostly a single issue. This strikes me as a conflict about cultures and covers a broader range of issues.

The other thing that is different, and dangerous, is that we have a major political party in the Republicans that appears to be supportive of right wing radical politics.

Now, I'm going to be honest. I'm not sure if the GOP actually agrees with the extreme right wing or just wants their votes. I used to think it was the latter but I'm no longer so sure about that.

Worse is we have a president that first declares that blame is on both sides, then declares he's opposed to white nationalism, then declares that blame in on both sides and finally declares that there are some "very fine people" among the white nationalist demonstrators.

Someone seriously needs to put a muzzle on Trump. Every time he opens his mouth he sticks his head up his rear end.