Charlottesville: can both sides be blamed for violence?

In My Humble Opinion
181

So, are you trying to say that the core principles of communism are those of hate and bigotry, or that the core principles of nazism are not those of hate and bigotry?

You can disagree with communists on implementation. Like I’ve said, I’ve yet to see a large scale implementation of communism that did not more or less immediately devolve into a corrupt authoritarian dictatorship. And that may be a flaw in the philosophy that inevitably leads to that outcome, or it may just need the right people at the right place and time to properly implement it.

Advocating for communism is advocating for equality and fairness, even if it is a bit naive to think that that would be the result.

Advocating for nazism is advocating for hatred, genocide, violence, and general bigotry. It is not a naive ideal that nazis may stand for a nobler goal, it is pure ignorance to believe that.

There is NO moral equivalence.

182

I’d say that the core principles of Nazis are hate and bigotry and murder.

And that the core principles of Communism, when implemented in government, have inevitably resulted in hate and bigotry and murder.

However, communism on a small scale – communes, kibbutzen, and the like – are workable.

So I agree there’s no moral equivalence: a communist at least starts with noble ideals.

However, waving the hammer and sickle is not a statement that one favors communism in its pure form. The hammer and sickle waved over a government that used hate and bigotry and murder routinely.

183

The lengths that both sides are going to excuse their own side is absurd.

The rally was a bunch of Nazis, KKKs, and their ilk. The idea that somehow a significant portion of them were garden variety members of the right is absurd. No garden variety member of the right is going to march under Nazi flags or next to a guy in a robe.

The extreme left (communists, anarchists, black separatists, etc.) at this march are not cuddly idealists. If any of them gained power it would be a disaster for this country leading to civil war and millions of deaths. These extreme groups breed violence and we’ve seen lone wolves kill a dozen people over the last few years. The lefts refusal to denounce them is especially jarring when coupled with their criticism of Trump for failing to denounce the rally with enough vigor.

184

No problems with this part.

But these were a very small part of the counter-protests. Most of the counter protesters were local religious leaders and regular folks who opposed racism and bigotry. The extreme left was a very small part of the counter-protests, while the extreme-right (if that’s how you characterize white supremacists and neo-nazis) dominated the “Unite the Right” rally.

That’s why the two sides weren’t the same in Charlottesville. Most of the anti-nazi protesters were just regular folks and local religious leaders who think nazis and white supremacists are terrible.

185

How does this address my point besides providing further proof of the left’s refusal to acknowledge and denounce the extremists in their midst?

186

So you agree that there’s no comparing the two sides at Charlottesville?

I certainly agree that violent extremists should be denounced, whether on the right or the left. In Charlottesville, there hundreds of violent extremists, and the vast majority were white supremacists/nazis/etc.

187

This is as good a place to drop this as any–armed manpepper-sprays Civil War reenactors.

188

True, but I don’t know that all that many of the protesters are actually all that aware of the history of the USSR. It fell in my teens, and most of these protesters look a bit younger than me.

I had to go through quite a number of pictures before I found any of the hammer and sickle imagery, it was appended at the bottom of a few of the signs some were holding. I think I saw a flag, but it was folded in such a way I can’t be sure.

There is also the fact that the hammer and sickle imagery was created after the russian civil war to symbolize the alliance of workers and industrialists. It was the symbol of peaceful labor and unity. It was also used outside the USSR to symbolize that idealized relationship.

That the same symbol also flew over the USSR when the USSR was our mortal enemy is possibly a reason to reject such symbols in the united states, but rejecting it for that reason actually shows less historical knowledge than embracing it not knowing its more current meanings.

So, in the end, the hammer and sickle also stand for the ideals of equality and fairness, so people taking them up to advocate for equality and fairness is not that abhorrent or even ignorant, even given that these symbols have been used by others to represent regimes that were maybe not quite so great.

Even the swastika had meaning prior to the nazis coopting it, and I have seen displays of it in other contexts that at first make you cringe, cause you think you see a bunch of nazis, but then realize that they had the symbol first. If I saw a swastika outside the rest of the nazi regalia, I may still make an assumption about it, but I could be wrong, and it could just be a good luck charm handed down over a hundred years. Somehow I doubt that was the case last weekend.

But yeah, when you march with a group, you are advocating for something. When you march with communists, there may be many reasons why, but ultimately, you are trying to move the overton window towards communism’s slightly better looking cousin, socialism. When you march with nazis, where are you looking to move the overton window to?

189

Why are you asking random questions?

This does not comport with reality.

190

Which part?

191

This is naive to the point of willful ignorance. Communism has always advocated for violent revolution leading to the murder of class enemies. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, etc have all specifically called for the mass murder of class enemies and those communists who gain power have all implemented mass murder on a scale that dwarfs the Nazis. Advocating for communism is not about equality and fairness it is advocating for a violent revolution that would implement terror and kill millions of people. They are not peaceful at all. The World Workers Party which was represented at the march broke with other communist groups because the other groups criticized North Korea. In the video the signs they hold up clearing say workers.org which is an obviously communist site and if the name doesn’t clue people in they can google it.

192

How about we praise the religious leaders and regular folks who opposed racism and bigotry, condemn the communists, condemn the neo-nazis, condemn the white supremacists, condemn anyone on either side who resorted to violence, and shake our heads ruefully at those on either side who were too naive to realize the evil people that they were marching with? There is no reason to excuse anyone who does evil or believes in evil just because people on the other side are evil too.

193

That’s pretty ignorant of the history of the struggles of the working class.

While I agree that communistic governments have not gone over well, your idea that they start and end with a philosophy of violence is utterly incorrect.

Thank you for answering the OP. You agree with trump that there is no difference between a nazi and someone opposing nazis.

194

Which communist government is the exception?

195

This is all fine, as long as we recognize that, by far, the worst people there were the nazis and white supremacists, and no one else is even close.

196

A poll.

“Far more blame “the far right groups” for Charlottesville (46%) than “the counter-protesters” (9%), but a remarkable 40% concur with Trump’s assertion that both were equally responsible.”

So - 49% of those asked either thought that both sides are equally responsible or that the “counter-protesters” were responsible.

197

Aside from freedom and equality, the hammer and sickle is probably the most powerful symbol of how profoundly the Nazi’s were defeated and destroyed. It was the flag that flew over the Reichsteg to symbolize that the capital of the “Master Race” had lost, and not to Western Allies many of which the viewed as similar racial stock, but to the “untermensch.” It’s an incredibly powerful rebuke of all that is the Nazi mentality.

198

These are people who have close to zero publicity aside from their use as bogeymen on right-wing outlets that we left-of-center types rarely visit.

As such, my denunciation of such groups must largely consist of “huh?” And any denunciation of them must necessarily be paired with a denunciation of the people who are extracting the most value from them: their publicity agents in the wingnut right.

199

Did I make a claim that communism had been implemented on a national scale successfully? I think I made the exact opposite point, in fact, that it has not, and possibly cannot be implemented on a national scale successfully.

On the small scales, however, it does work.

And on the small slide towards communism, socialism, there are many governments that are perfectly stable with happy citizens that are quite socialistic in nature.

Moving towards communism is moving toward socialism, which is proven to work. What happens when you move toward naziism?

Errr, I typed that, and re-read your question, and realize that it didn’t really answer what you were asking. I’m gonna leave that anyway, and try to answer a bit better what I think you are asking, in that what communist governments did not start with a philosophy of murder and violence.

And to answer that, I’d say most of them. I mean, technically, all governments are founded on violence, there is no exception to that, I don’t think, ever (can you think of one?). The United States didn’t become a country through peaceful means. So, to condemn a government because it uses violence to get established is to condemn every government ever.

I do not believe, however, that many of the communist governments were formed with the philosophy of violence against their people, but instead were formed with the ideals that everyone would be treated fairly and equitably. Now, the way that played out, with people in charge being human, and humans being poor at wielding power without corruption, and part of the communist practicality requires that power be concentrated into the hands of a small number of people, I will agree, has not turned out well.

So, as I said, communism may be unworkable, and it may be naive to believe it can work on national scales, but it is not based on the philosophies of hatred and bigotry, as is naziism.

Which is ultimately my point. You can march with a communist, because you share the core ideals of fairness and equality, even if you disagree with that particular communist on their particular brand of implementation. You cannot march with a nazi without sharing the core ideals of racism, no matter the implementation of naziism you may think you want to bring about.
ETA: and strangely, I find myself agreeing with ZPG up there, in that another reason to use the symbols of communism against nazis is that the people carrying those symbols did more damage to the naziis than the those carrying the symbols of the allies did.

200

See, I think you can swap “left” and “right” in your post and have it be equally as valid.