Neo Nazis and the Alt Right

Many participants were taught the lyrics to the Confederate anthem “Dixie.” The protest was based on a desire to preserve Southern history. However, it involved a considerable number of people with no connection to the South. They were celebrating the Confederacy not for its own history, but as a symbol of white supremacy.

Kind of like the CSA statues themselves.

Just as feudalism or mercantilism came to end, so too will capitalism. Ultimately it’s not sustainable. What replaces it I’ve no idea. Some sort of steady state economy probably, but also not something likely to happen for generations - although I think those that describe it now as “last stage capitalism” aren’t far off.

(For the record, I’m not young.)

And then they realize humanity is a boil on the butt of the planet and…well, you know.

Cantwell’s attorney is Elmer Woodard, who appeared in court wearing an early-1800s-style red waistcoat with gold buttons, bowtie, white muttonchop whiskers, black velcro shoes, and a a 1910s-style straw boater hat. Cantwell said Woodard was his fourth choice for legal counsel after three other lawyers declined to take his case. (Woodard previously attempted to defend a client accused of sexual assault by a 15-year-old girl by claiming that the man’s sleepwalking caused him to rape her.)

Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci asked Judge Sheryl Higgins to allow him to introduce as evidence videos of Cantwell making violent statements, including some of his closing words in the Vice documentary: “I think [Heather Heyer’s death] was more than justified… I think that a lot more people are gonna die before we’re done here, frankly.”

Woodard objected, claiming that videos of his own client speaking were hearsay evidence.

Woodard objected, claiming that videos of his own client speaking were hearsay evidence.

Say which?

https://media.tenor.com/images/b5a9042c13f56163e2d43269e06d6da2/tenor.gif

Really, the whole article is gold.

“How is it hearsay when it’s your client’s own words?" Higgins replied, overruling Woodard’s objection.

Woodard then offered what he said was a quote by comedian Jackie Mason, saying that “take my wife, please"” was obviously not intended as a literal desire to kill or abandon a woman (the quote is actually from Henny Youngman). He compared Cantwell’s hate-filled monologues against Jews, blacks, Muslims, and other minorities on his podcasts to Mason. Woodard said it was all a “shock jock” act.

But when Tracci asked Cantwell to describe what he does for a living, he answered: “I do a racist podcast.”

After Cantwell had already admitted that he had sprayed one of the protesters with pepper spray, Woodard said Cantwell “could have sprayed water, he could have sprayed anything, nobody has proven that it was pepper spray or mace or anything else.”

Oh. My. God.

This is literally the lawyer:

image

This is actually his office. You can zoom in on the building sign to confirm.

The address matches his entry in the legal directory.

Apparently that lawyer was Cantwell’s fourth pick. The first three wouldn’t touch him.

I see he is going for the Chewbacca defense.

Truly, the most magnificent legal defense ever provided

I can imagine driving up and down looking for an office before finally pulling up next to that shack to ask for directions and…

https://twitter.com/odinsdream/status/903708891996934144

At the risk of reigniting the free speech thing:

“America has this back-ass-wards Calvinist streak where calling for the expulsion and genocide of non-white races is just a difference of opinion,” Boivin said. “But making a sex joke at a corporate mascot who paid money to advertise to you is cause for censure.”

Well I hope nobody reignites that argument, since being suspended/banned from twitter is not a violation of anyone’s rights. Nobody has a right to Twitter. I’m thankful that I still have a right to ignore Twitter.

Oh geez, I just did it, didn’t I?

Yeah, IMO the Tony the Tiger thing is absolutely about Twitter’s policies and their ban algorithm with regard to verified (blue badge) accounts, and not about free speech.

Been reading this fascinating Harper’s piece by Dorothy Thompson, written in 1941:

Who Goes Nazi?

It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times—in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.

It’s anchored to its time in some obvious ways, but I’m struck by how many of her observations could also apply to 2017.

(This Dorothy Thompson)

Thank you for linking this. This is wonderful. Thompson is a writer par excellence. Mmm.

Well, one idiot does apparently.