Bay Area weekend protests

Two weeks ago today, Trump had his public decompensation in which he blamed the pro-democracy protesters in Charlottesville for the violence by the white supremacist/KKK/Nazi demonstrators on the previous weekend.

It took two weeks before good respectable liberals were jumping on the bandwagon to blame "antifa," which they are happy to define as Trump did in Phoenix as some vague evil Mean Librul thing. Scott Greenfield goes the liberal-troll route in this tweet:

To the antifa, anyone who isn't them is a fascist who deserves to be beaten. And they are there to beat people. https://t.co/L6kRxoKRmu

— Scott Greenfield (@ScottGreenfield) August 29, 2017

Finally! A good excuse for nice liberals to blast people who actually protest against white racism as the Real Villains. And strike a smug liberal posture while doing it. Plus, it's a good way to be quoted in stories as "even-the-liberal so-and-so agrees ..."

Surprisingly, even-the-Green Chris Hedges, happily echoes Trump's Both Sides Do It position in How ‘Antifa’ Mirrors the ‘Alt-Right’ Truthdig 08/27/2017. Right down to using the "alt-left" trope:

Behind the rhetoric of the “alt-right” about white nativism and protecting American traditions, history and Christian values is the lust for violence. Behind the rhetoric of antifa, the Black Bloc and the so-called “alt-left” about capitalism, racism, state repression and corporate power is the same lust for violence.

The two opposing groups, largely made up of people who have been cast aside by the cruelty of corporate capitalism, have embraced holy war.

This 08/19/2017 piece by Kevin Drum doesn't fall into the both-sides-do-it trap, Nonviolence Is the Perfect Answer to Neo-Nazis Mother Jones.

Robert Reich posted this on his Facebook page 08/27/2017, responding to the specific occurences in Berkeley that day:

From where the text in the embed ends:

Some antifa protesters also threatened to break the cameras of anyone who filmed them, including journalists. One reporter tweeted that he had been pepper sprayed in one scuffle.

According to the Washington Post, black-clad anarchists attacked at least five people. More than 100 hooded protesters, with shields emblazoned with the words “no hate” and waving a flag identifying themselves as anarchists, busted through police lines.

If these reports are correct, the antifa and black bloc anarchists have given Trump supporters exactly what they wanted in coming to Berkeley: footage of violence perpetrated against them. [my emphasis]

I don't see that comment of Bob Reich's as indulging in both-sides-do-it. He's making a very legitimate political point, that the far-right protesters were seeking to portray themselves as victims.

Josh Marshall has a broader and nuanced take on Should We Be Punching Nazis? TPM 08/28/52017:

Now, hearing this argument you might think I’m arguing for a bloodless “I may disagree with what you say but I’ll fight for your right to say it” argument. It’s not. I actually like seeing Nazis get punched. Nor do I think all views deserve a right of equal hearing in a democratic society. Philosophies that seek to destroy democracy and the rule of law don’t merit equal validation by a democracy. We grant them certain rights because doing so is consistent with a larger system of laws and rights that guarantees a civil society that is the antithesis of what they believe in. Put another way, Nazis deserve to get punched. A few sucker punches here and there probably send a salutary message. But it’s not always wise to give people what they deserve.

I also think that in cases where the police either refuse to protect or are unable to protect the victims of fascist intimidation and violence that there should be defense groups that do so. That is defensive violence in specific situations. And more generally that only presupposes the breakdown of the state and its basic responsibilities which it should be our main goal to avoid.

The entirety of this seems still a largely marginal issue – a few street brawls in different parts of the country in which Nazis come out to march and intimidate and left-wing groups go out to meet them also looking for a fight. This is a tiny, tiny percentage of those counter-protesting these people. And I don’t include here people who simply defend themselves when attacked. But it’s still worth thinking this question through – even at a distance – since we live in troubled times.

Pushing civil society from talk and voting to violence and paramilitaries is what the fascists are trying to accomplish – moving from the rule of law to the rule of force. By every historical standard and also by almost every philosophical one, this is a victory for, if not fascism, then certainly authoritarianism. The answer to Nazis and white supremacists isn’t flowery talk or left-wing paramilitaries. It’s a stronger rule of law and an empowered state behind it. We have our work cut out for us.

It is the responsibility of the police to protect the right of peaceful demonstrators and to respond to obvious threat to the lives and safety of people in public confrontations. Like, for instance, if demonstrators show up with automatic weapons, like some of the rightwingers in Charlottesville did. And it's highly questionable, to put it mildly, whether the Charlottesville police responded in an optimal way to protect lives or the right of peaceful protest. (Aaron Davis et al, How Charlottesville lost control amid deadly protest Washington Post 08/26/2017)


Here are some of the news reports on the Berkeley protests Sunday:

• Lizzie Johnson et al, Live coverage: Violence at Berkeley rally escalates, police make arrests SFGate 08/272017
• Alix Martichoux, The most creative signs from the protests in Berkeley, San Francisco SFGate 08/27/2017
• Patrick May, Police make arrests as demonstrators face off at a chaotic Berkeley protest East Bay Times 08/27/2017
• Lizzie Johnson et al, Masked anarchists violently rout right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley SFGate 08/27/2017
• Patrick May et al, Police make arrests as demonstrators face off at chaotic Berkeley protest San Jose Mercury News 08/27/2017

"Charlottesville" as a reminder that the left and center-left need to contest historical interpretations

The transcript of Trump's instantly-infamous press conference on Tuesday is available from several sources, including Read the complete transcript of President Trump's remarks at Trump Tower on Charlottesville Los Angeles Times 08/15/2017. The press conference was physically located in Trump Tower in New York City.

But "Charlottesville" is now the name for an event. Like "Jackson State" or "Kent State" became symbols in 1970s as well as physical locations.

I've been trying this year to incorporate "synecdoche" and "metonymy." I think using "Charlottesville" to review to the confluence of events from the torch demonstration Friday night to (at least) Trump's both-sides press conference yesterday counts as a synecdoche, in which one element of something is used to represent the whole. (People more literate in linguistics than I am are welcome to correct me.) I would also say that "Charlottesville" qualifies as a "vacant signifier" in the sense in which Ernesto Laclau uses it in his political theory, a place name in this case, that had no particular national or international political significance has suddenly become a word signifying white supremacist terrorism and the defense of it and of white supremacists, the KKK and Nazis by the President of the United States.

Here is a Wednesday take from the Morning Joe crew, Joe: None Of Us Have Seen Anything Like Yesterday MSNCBC 08/16/2017:

There are a few groaners in that one, such as Jon Meachem wondering in good Pod Pundit fashion how the Republican Party got this way. A few hints Jon: Barry Goldwater, the Southern Strategy, "Build That Wall."

The head of the Our Revolution organization that emerged from Bernie Sanders' campaign discusses "Charlottesville" in this segment, Nina Turner Denounces the Enablers of Nazis The Real News 08/15/2017:

I'll mention a few good takes on the situation prior to Tuesday:

• Will Bunch, Trump's shameful moral void on Charlottesville leaves America without a leader Philadelphia Inquirer 08/13/2017
• Charlie Pierce, This Is the Bleakest Moment for America in my Lifetime Esquire Politics Blog 08/13/2017
• David Neiwert and The Investigative Fund, Home is where the hate is Reveal 06/21/2017 (Obviously, in June, "Charlottetsville" hadn't taken on the meaning it just did over this weekend.)

Charlie Pierce calls attention to an important feature of Trump's Tuesday press conference in Maybe Next Time Stick to the Notes Esquire Politics Blog 08/15/2017, focusing on this aspect of Trump's rant, from the LA Times transcript:

Those people -- all of those people -- excuse me. I've condemned neo-Nazis. I've condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists, by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue, Robert E. Lee. So -- excuse me. And you take a look at some of the groups and you see -- and you'd know it if you were honest reporters, which in many cases you're not, but many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. So this week it's Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson's coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week? And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you all -- you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop? But they were there to protest -- excuse me. You take a look, the night before, they were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. ...

QUESTION: George Washington and Robert E. Lee are not the same (inaudible)…

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So, will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down -- excuse me -- are we going to take down -- are we going to take down statues to George Washington?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: OK. Good. Are we going to take down the statue? Because he was a major slave owner. Now, are we going to take down his statue? So you know what? It's fine. You're changing history. You're changing culture. And you had people, and I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats. You've got -- you had a lot of bad -- you had a lot of bad people in the other group. [my emphasis]

Pierce writes:

There's actually an interesting question buried in all that malarkey as to where to place the slaveholding of Washington, Jefferson and many of the rest of the Founders in our historical memory now that we're correcting the memory of the Civil War, monument by monument. (At Montpelier, the home of James Madison, the people in charge have been working hard for several years to honor the stories of the slaves that lived and worked there.) But that's not what the president* was getting at. He was bigot-signaling to his vaunted base that he would have been out there with a tiki torch himself. That's why we got all that talk about the very fine Nazis who were patrolling the park on Saturday night along with the Citronella SS, and who were treated so unfairly by the fake news media when they decided to go for throats.

And that's what takes Tuesday's explosion beyond the realm of simple mockery. There's an audience out there for every lunatic assertion the president* made. We saw it in full flower last Saturday. And he knows it's there, too. He knows that it's the one segment of the American population still guaranteed to give his fragile-if-monumental ego the constant boost that it needs. So he needed to salve all the fee-fees he wounded the other day when somebody dragged him out so he could say right out loud that being a Nazi is a bad thing. This was an angry, heartfelt appeal to his white nationalist base to stick with him, probably because that base is all he has left.

One of my longtime concerns is that the left and center-left do not contest American history thoroughly enough, given the ways in which the rightwingers invoke figures like Washington and Jefferson that have a mythical status for most Americans as Founders and pioneers of democracy.

I've expressed here more than once my frustration at the inability of the left and center-left to contest the democratic and, yes, revolutionary heritage of early and antebellum American history. I hope the left generally gets better at it.

Here is a recent post of mind on the Andrew Jackson part of that heritage, Trump puts Andrew Jackson back in the news 05/03/2017. Jackson, BTW, legitimately counts as a Founder; he fought in the Revolutionary War.

Netroots Nation 2017 and protesting against Charlottesville rightwing terrorism

I'm just winding up an interesting and enjoyable long weekend at the annual Netroots Nation convention in Atlanta. The pressure from the grassroots on the Democratic Party to be more forceful in standing up for its own claimed programs and principles was very evident and encouraging to see and experience. And the murderous white supremacist rally in Charlottesville added a extra sense of immediacy to resisting Trumpism and pressing the Democratic Party to become a more progressive presence in US politics. After Al Gore's closing plenary presentation, organizers had arranged for a march from the downtown conference hotel to the Statehouse in protest of white supremacy and in solidarity with the victims of the rightwing white terrorist attack there.

The local paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, gave particular attention to the ways in which Georgia state politics made its presence felt at the conference in a front-page article today by Greg Bluestein that doesn't seem to be online at this writing, "Liberal activists display divide among Democrats") 08/13/2017) but also highlighted the reform vibe of the event:

The nation's leading liberal activists came to Atlanta for the Netroots Nation conference spoiling to sharpen their fight with President Donald Trump. But they proved just as willing to poke, prod and pummel their fellow Democrats.

He obviously means that mainly metaphorically, though he does mention that "a minor scuffle broke out in the audience" when some attendees were loudly protesting Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Evans. The two main candidates in the Democratic gubernatorial contest are both named Stacey, the other being Stacey Abrams, who spoke at the opening plenary on Thursday. Evans is white, Abrams is black, which is some kind of factor in the contest. But part of the rap on Stacey Evans, in particular, is that she has supported some school privatization efforts.

This hour-long segment from TYT Network features three of the anti-Evans protesters, Jordan [Chariton] From Netroots Nation: Protests vs. Establishment 08/12/2017. I believe at least one of the three people interviewed here and maybe all three also spoke at the mini-rally at the Statehouse on Saturday:

More from Bluestein's print report:

Primary challenger to long-serving Democrats were treated like stars. Panels instructed the 3,000 or so activists how to wrest control of their local parties.

Others encouraged them to challenge establishment Democrats, whether they be on local school boards or in Congress, if they aren't liberal enough.

If anything was clear, the internal Democratic fissures sharpened by Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign have solidified, if not deepened, since Trump's election. In panels and in side conversations, organizers talked about forcing Democrats toward more liberal policies, such as single-payer health care and free college tuition.

I didn't attend the last two years' Netroots Nation conventions. But comparing my impressions this year to those from 2014 and earlier, my impression was similar.

Jordan Chariton in the video above gives a different perspective, arguing that Netroots Nation attendees are a more Establishment group than those at the People's Summit earlier this year. But he also explains that there are plenty of progressive people here, it's just they tend to be part of more organized groups that normally support the Democratic Party. And I think that's a fair assessment. Netroots Nation tends to attract people who are comfortable with working within the Democratic Party. But not the Blue Dog variety. Not a lot of Joe Manchin fans at NN gatherings. Whereas the People's Summit drew more people who were new to politics and/or attracted to left groups who keep their distance from the Democrats, and tended to attract younger participants on the average. (I haven't attended the People's Summit.)

I selected panels to attend that addressed foreign policy issues - there weren't many of those! - and panels that addressed Islamophobia, which is a key ideology for the radical right in the US and in Europe. Just after the news of the car attack in Charlottesville broke, I attended the panel organized by Dave Neiwert, who is himself an authority on the far right in the US, titled "The White Face of Domestic Terrorism: How Islamophobia Distorts the Reality of Terrorist Violence in America." It also featured anti-terrorism expert Daryl Johnson and Rabiah Ahmed of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).

That was immediately followed by the closing plenary session, where Al Gore did a presentation in interview format, mostly dealing with the climate crisis. At the end, he addressed the Charlottesville disgrace, repeatedly referring to the white supremacists as alt-right, KKK and Nazis. Political junkies gravitate toward quibbles over labels. But as Dave Neiwert and his panel explained, actual Nazis, i.e., Hitler-worshipers and those who explicitly admire the Third Reich, are a distinctive segment of the far right which form part of the "alt-right" spectrum. But the latter also includes other currents, including the "Men's Rights Movement."

Bluestein also covered Gore's speech (In Atlanta, Gore urges Trump to ‘try again’ with response to Charlottesville attacks AJC Online 08/2/2017):

Trump condemned the protests that resulted in at least three deaths and prompted the governor to declare a state of emergency, but he didn’t criticize the white nationalist rally, which featured anti-Semitic chants and neo-Nazi slogans. Instead, he called for unity among “all races, creeds and colors.”

Gore said Trump should “give more thought to what it means to have a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi movement marching and creating this kind of hatred.”

“The country would be better served if the president would come back before the people,” he said, “and think of a more thoughtful and appropriate statement about how we can understand what’s going on in America – and how we can go forward.”

The quickly-organized march after the plenary session was impressive. Apparently there were about 500 people, pretty much all from the NN conference. Delores Huerta, the famous farmworkers' leader who worked closely with Cesar Chavez who had also spoken at the convention, led the procession to the Statehouse. Whoever the people were directly involved in organizing the march, they did an impressively good job of setting up the march, getting official permissions quickly, and keeping the marchers focused and walking in orderly groups. Huerta also spoke at the small rally at the Capitol. But that part of the event was not so well planned. The organizers never noticed, it seemed, that the loudspeaker connected to her mike wasn't working, so that most people couldn't hear what she said. That was followed by several other speakers, apparently from the same group that had organized the protest against Stacey Evans. There wasn't a clear theme to the presentations.

But that's a quibble. It was an impressive march. They used some chants familiar to me. But there were ones new to me, too, my own favorite being, "No Trump! No KKK! No fascist USA!" In a different context, I might have thought that was too sectarian sounding and maybe obscure for such an event. But unfortunately, on Friday it clearly addressing a white terrorist attack very much in the national news at that very moment.

Confederate "Heritage" Month, April 21: The first Ku Klux Klan and white Christian terrorism

The Thomas Nast cartoon above, titled "The Union as it Was", first appeared in Harper's Weekly of 10/24/1874 as a comment on the white Christian terrorist groups that former Confederates had organized in the South to deprive newly-enfranched black men of the vote and both black men and women of their civil rights.

The most famous of those groups was the Ku Klux Klan, though it was only one among a number of such groups. The "White League" pictured in Nast's cartoon was another name used by these anti-democracy Christian terrorist groups. The generic name "Ku Klux Klan" became a common shorthand for such groups generally. The KKK as such was largely suppressed at the time, though other groups continued to use violence and coercion to overthrown the democratic Reconstruction governments by terrorizing Republican voters (both black and white) and by massive "voter fraud" (to use the current phrase, only then it was very real) and corruption. The Klan of this era is now referred to as the "first Klan", because the later groups that went by that name were not directly connected to the earlier versions. The 1920s were actually the peak of political influence for the KKK nationally.

Kenneth Stammp described the activities of the KKK and related Christian terrorist groups in The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1966):

Organized terrorism was popularly associated with the Ku Klux Klan, formed in Tennessee in 1866, but the Klan was only one of many such organizations, which included the Knights of the White Camelia, the White Brotherhood, the Pale Faces, and the '76 Association. These societies drew their membership chiefly, but by no means exclusively, from the poor whites and yeoman farmers, who apparently found their rituals and organizational terminology, as well as their purposes, irresistible. The local Klan units were called dens; these were organized into provinces, the provinces into dominions, the dominions into realms, and the whole into an empire, "The Invisible Empire of the South." At the head was a grand wizard and ten genii; subordinate to them were grand dragons, furies, hydras, titans, and night-hawks. Members of the dens were called ghouls, and the den master was a Cyclops. "This is an institution of Chivalry, Humanity, Mercy, and Patriotism," declared the Klan's prescript, "embodying in its genius and its principles all that is chivalric in conduct, noble in sentiment, generous in manhood, and patriotic in purpose." Its purposes were, among others, to "protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless" and to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Presumably in pursuit of these goals candidates for membership had to affirm that they were "opposed to negro equality, both social and political," and "in favor of a white man's government." (my emphasis)

Nathan Bedford Forrest, early Ku Klux Klan leader and general whose troops massacred black Union prisoners of war at Fort Pillow

The Confederate cavalry General Nathan Bedford Forrest was one of the main leaders of the early Klan and is considered to be one of its founders, possibly also the first "grand dragon" who presided over the first convention of the Invisible Empire of the South held in Nashville in 1867. Forrest was notorious for what was known as the Fort Pillow Massacre, in which soldiers under his command murdered black Union prisoners of war.

The Lost Cause view romanticized the Klan terrorists of this period. In the Gone With the Wind movie, we see Scarlett O'Hara (Scarlett Kennedy at the time) attacked by men who tried to pull her out of her wagon as she rode near their encampment. She's saved by a former family slave. After that, her husband Frank Kennedy goes out with a group of white men to raze the black emcampment. Rhett Butler goes out and saves some of them from a Federal soldiers' ambush, though Frank doesn't make it back. Scarlett is far more concerned about her beloved Ashley Wilkes, who is wounded but Rhett cons the soldiers who show up at the mansion into thinking Ashley is just drunk. No particular organization is mentioned in connection with that incident in the movie.

In Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel, she is more explicit. Describing the scene of the women at the mansion waiting for the men to return, she writes:

"Where is Ashley? What has happened to him, Melly?" cried Scarlett.

"Where's your husband? Aren't you interested in him?" India's pale eyes blazed with insane malice as she crumpled and straightened the torn towel she had been mending.

"India, please!" Melanie had mastered her voice but her white, shaken face and tortured eyes showed the strain under which she was laboring. "Scarlett, perhaps we should have told you but—but—you had been through so much this afternoon that we — that Frank didn't think—and you were always so outspoken against the Klan—"

"The Klan—"

At first, Scarlett spoke the word as if she had never heard it before and had no comprehension of its meaning and then:

"The Klan!" she almost screamed it. "Ashley isn't in the Klan! Frank can't be! Oh, he promised me!"

"Of course, Mr. Kennedy is in the Klan and Ashley, too, and all the men we know," cried India. "They are men, aren't they? And white men and Southerners. You should have been proud of him instead of making him sneak out as though it were something shameful and -"

"You all have known all along and I didn't -"

"We were afraid it would upset you," said Melanie sorrowfully.

"Then that's where they go when they're supposed to be at the political meetings? Oh, he promised me! Now, the Yankees will come and take my mills and the store and put him in jail - oh, what did Rhett Butler mean?" (my emphasis)

This positive view of the Klan was very much part of the Lost Cause "heritage". I should point out here that Scarlett's opposition to Ashley's and Frank's being part of the Klan was due to her worry for Ashley's safety and her selfish desire to protect her property from being confiscated by the Yankees. It functions in the story as a sign of weakness of character, not as some kind of principled opposition to white Christian terrorism.

Stammp points out that Congress passed three "Force Acts" (1870 and two in 1871) and the Grant administration at that time did take steps to preserve democracy in face of its terrorist opponents:

Additional federal troops were sent into the South, adn President Grant suspended the write of habeas corpus in a number of South Carolina counties [where Christian terrorist violence was particular severe]. After scores of arrests, fines and imprisonments, the Klan's power was finally broken, and by 1872 it had almost disappeared.

As I mentioned, though, and as Stammp proceeds to describe, that didn't end the violence and attempts to suppress democratic government in the South, attempts that eventually succeeded. John Hope Franklin and Alfred Moos, Jr., describe the disgraceful process in From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (8th edition; 2003):

The overthrow of the Radicals [pro-democracy Republicans] was accomplished not only by [white] Southerners returning to political action and restoring Conservative governments but also by other circumstances favorable to white Southerners. Intimidation of blacks was effective. Even where there were no riots, whites kept blacks from the polls by terrorism and thus ensured victory for the Democratic party. After the official dissolution of the Ku Klux Klan in 1869, other methods of intimidation were employed to render blacks politically inconsequential. Indeed, intimidation was most effective after 1870, although the Ku Klux Klan disclaimed all responsibility because of the increasing violence. The crops of blacks were destroyed, their barns and houses burned, and they were whipped and lynched for voting Republican. Organized whites became bolder as they patrolled polling places to guarantee "fair, peaceful, and Democratic" elections.

Tags: christian terrorism, john hope franklin, kenneth stampp, ku klux klan, reconstruction