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2785Une séquence brutale a eu lieu vendredi et samedi dans la ville de Charlottesville, en Virginie, État où naquirent notamment Thomas Jefferson, rédacteur de la Déclaration d’Indépendance de 1776 et troisième président des USA, et Robert E. Lee, général commandant en chef de l’Armée de la Virginie du Nord, en réalité de facto principal officier général de toutes les forces armées de la Confédération des États sudistes durant la Guerre de Sécession. C’est autour d’une statue de Robert E. Lee sur le point d’être abattue et du Parc Lee qui doit être rebaptisé Parc de l’Emancipation (des esclaves, supposerons-nous), qu’eurent lieu les bagarres entre deux groupes, l’un des AltRight (autour de 300, qui avaient organisé la manifestation initiale) et l’autre des Antifa (en contre-manifestation), avec l’incident d’une auto conduite par un “suprémaciste blanc” fonçant dans le groupe Antifa et tuant une personne, et en blessant plusieurs. En fait, l’essentiel de la bataille s’est livré ensuite, avec un formidable déluge “antifa” (antifasciste), c’est-à-dire anti-raciste, anti-blanc, bien entendu anti-Trump, etc.
« Ce qui cependant divisera encore plus ce pays, écrit Ben Domenech de “The Federalist”, c’est le fait que les élites de droite dans la politique et dans les médias se précipitent pour capituler dans cette bataille avant même d’avoir commencé à y participer, sans penser une seconde vers quoi ce comportement conduira... [...] La situation vers où tout cela nous conduit est infiniment pire que celle où nous nous trouvons actuellement, – puisqu’il s’agit d’un conflit d’une nation en guerre avec elle-même à propos de son caractère et de sa nature. Cette guerre finira affreusement, quelle qu’en soit l’issue. Et toute cette histoire se terminera par le démantèlement de Monticello, pierre après pierre. »
Monticelllo est le nom de la demeure de Thomas Jefferson, né à Charlottesville et mort dans cette superbe maison édifiée en haut d'une colloine, à 10 kilomètres de la même Charlottesville ; Jefferson avait fondé dans cette ville l’une des plus vieilles et des plus prestigieuses universités des USA, l’Université de Virginie. C’est dire si l’affrontement de la fin de la semaine dernière est plein de symbolisme dans tous les sens, qu'il acquiert une démesure significative à cause de ce symbolisme, qu’il est lié à la crise actuelle en lui donnant sa dimension métahistorique puisqu’elle renvoie à deux grands hommes des deux principaux événements de l’histoire de cette puissance.
Il nous apparaît totalement inutile, fastidieux, hypocrite et simplement stupide de nous attarder à la narrative dans laquelle s’ébat, en extase sinon en orgasme, toute la presseSystème du bloc-BAO plus que jamais constituée en bloc inaltérable d’une extraordinaire barbarie de l’inculture. Prendre une poignée de pseudo-nazies hirsutes venus des quatre coins des USA, sans aucune représentativité, sans la moindre audience, etc., pour en faire une “menace” semblable aux unités puissantes, armées et déterminées, tenant la rue d’une main de fer balayant tout sur leur passage, des SA de Röhm en 1931-1932 et quel que fût leur recrutement, cela ne mérite pas une ligne de discussion sérieuse.
(Il faudra voir d’ailleurs dans quelle mesure cette bande incertaine et plus qu’à son tour manipulée par des sous-marins du FBI infiltrés dans ses rangs, comme le firent les SR italiens dans les groupuscules fascistes italiens dans les années 1970, – les “Années de Plomb” de la “Stratégie de la Tension”, – dans quelle mesure ce rassemblement si limité représente en quoi que ce soit le phénomène dit de l’AltRight qu’Hillary Clinton nous sortit de sa manche dans un discours à guichets fermés, il y a un an.)
Par contre, les Antifa méritent toute notre attention. Ils ont une longue histoire dans toute la sphère occidentale, et notamment aux USA. Un des deux articles de The Federalist repris ci-dessous se charge de nous en donner quelques détails. Ils sont devenus l’aile marchante, sinon l’aile cognante des démocrates eux-mêmes devenus frénétiquement progressistres-sociétaux. Leurs ébats sont bien plus considérables, incomparablement plus nombreux, mieux organisés, bien rémunérés (Soros fait teinter sa caisse enregistreuse) que ceux des pseudo-nazis sortis d’une sorte de parc d’attraction à la-Mad Max. Domenech fait un rappel de ces incidents violents provoqués par les Antifa, qui sont autant de phases du type-“révolution de couleur”, qui obtinrent en général comme commentaires de la presseSystème de longues analyses de compréhension et d’approbation pour la manifestation de leur juste colère destructrice : Oakland 2009, Akron 2009, Pittsburgh 2009, Santa Cruz 2010, Oakland 2010, Los Angeles 2010, Oakland 2011, Chicago 2012, Anaheim 2012, Brooklyn 2013, Ferguson 2014, New York City 2014, Baltimore 2015, Anaheim 2016, Chicago 2016, St Paul 2016, Milwaukee 2016, Charlotte 2016, Standing Rock 2016, Oakland 2016, Portland 2016, Washington DC 2017, Berkeley 2017, Anaheim 2017, Berkeley (à nouveau) 2017, Berkeley (à nouveau à nouveau) 2017, Olympia 2017, et Portland 2017.
Nous ignorons quelles sont les penses secrètes, les orientations réelles s’ils en ont, les idéaux, les utopies de tous ces Antifa qui se placent bien entendu à l’extrême-gauche, ou ultra-gauche progressiste-sociétale. Là aussi, inutile de s’attarder dans les descriptions complotistes et autres, puisqu’il suffit de parvenir à la conclusion évidente que leur action est absolument et totalement au service du Système, directement ou par l’intermédiaire du Deep State et du parti démocrate qu’importe. La rapidité et la perfection de la mise en scène générale de Charlottesville, et le déferlement de communication qui a suivi montrent évidemment que ces actions entrent dans le scénario général de la guérilla postmoderne de la communication, et dominé sinon activé d’une façon irrésistible par les passions de la haine hystérique qui ne cesse de se révéler d’une durabilité et d’une capacité de régénération exceptionnelles. La séquence anti-Trump a eu bien entendu sa place, avec la fureur formidable devant sa réaction immédiatement dénoncée comme complice-approbatrice de l’AltRight, nous faisant comprendre là aussi que la présence du président constitue pour l’instant un motif considérable, type-muleta, d’aliment de cette haine hystérique que l’on voit poursuivre sa course. (L’ancien gouverneur Huckabee a observé que si « Trump avait sauté dans son hélicoptère jusqu’à Charlottesville, s’était rendu à la prison [où se trouvait le chauffeur de la voiture qui avait foncé dans la foule], l’avait abattu d’une balle entre les yeux, on l’aurait tout de même critiqué à cause du choix du calibre de la balle... »).
D’une façon générale, toute cette séquence constitue un développement de plus pour renforcer notre jugement que la situation aux USA est sans issue et ne pourra déboucher que sur des développements dramatiques dont le plus probable est une déconstruction du pays. L’attitude de Trump, y compris ses hésitations dans ce cas sous la pression de la presseSystème et de l’establishment (d’une condamnation de toutes les haines et de tous les actes de violence à une condamnation spécifique et conforme à la narrative-Système du racisme des groupes AltRight), pourrait être jugée dans des conditions normales comme une reculade et un affaiblissement de plus du président.
Mais nous ne sommes pas dans conditions normales. Trump n’a nul besoin d’être fort, d’imposer une politique, de faire aboutir ses projets, etc. ; il est là, le plus utilement du monde, pour entretenir la colère du Système engendrant le plus complet désordre, notamment le désordre du pouvoir, et renforçant chaque jour le constat fondamental que « la référence n’est plus le Système mais le désordre ». (En cela, effectivement American Gorbatchev de la forme la plus inattendue, celle que nous ne pouvions prévoir.) De ce point de vue également, la séquence-Charlottesville aura son effet.
Comme nous le laissions entendre plus haut, le site The Federalist a mis en ligne une série de textes très remarquables sur la séquence de Charlottesville. Nous en retenons deux, qui sont tous deux du 14 août 2017, de Ben Domenech et de D.C. McAllister (titre complet pour le texte de cette dernière) : « White Supremacists Were Not The Only Thugs Tearing Up Charlottesville »)... Il est toujours surprenant, par les temps qui courent, de trouver des commentateurs cultivés, logiques et n’appartennant à aucune mouvance extrême, ainsi capables de développer des réflexions mesurées et utiles en dépit du climat général de haine hystérique qui a envahi le système de la communication.
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Neither the extreme left nor the extreme right is representative of any significant constituency in American politics.
The tragedy of deadly violence that happened in Charlottesville will be used by the elite left to call for the further destruction of monuments to problematic figures from the past. The elite right will concede this battle – they’ve already indicated their utter concession to it, because they have no recognition where this path will end up, just as the elite right has always lacked perspective on the true aims of the left.
Last night in Washington, D.C., a Black Lives Matter rally populated overwhelmingly by white people took to the field in front of the White House and then marched to the Trump hotel to chant and rally against the existence of any confederate or slaveowner statues in D.C. This is what they want: to eradicate history and appreciations of American history because they judge all of it to be vile, and they believe – as many members of the media do – that deep down, American conservatives are all the same as those 300 or so would-be Nazis in Charlottesville. (Of course, they are pathetic would-be Nazis – they don’t have the discipline or the personal physiques to fit into Hugo Boss). That’s why they have been so eager to make such comparisons – remember when Seth MacFarlane said Nazis would love McCain-Palin? I do.
The list of protests which turned violent – which, when I shared it, triggered numerous accusations that I was defending Nazis, a white supremacist, and caused a reporter for one magazine where I used to be a columnist to describe me as “alt-right” – includes: Oakland 2009, Akron 2009, Pittsburgh 2009, Santa Cruz 2010, Oakland 2010, Los Angeles 2010, Oakland 2011, Chicago 2012, Anaheim 2012, Brooklyn 2013, Ferguson 2014, New York City 2014, Baltimore 2015, Anaheim 2016, Chicago 2016, St Paul 2016, Milwaukee 2016, Charlotte 2016, Standing Rock 2016, Oakland 2016, Portland 2016, Washington DC 2017, Berkeley 2017, Anaheim 2017, Berkeley (again) 2017, Berkeley (again again) 2017, Olympia 2017, and Portland 2017. This is a list of overwhelmingly leftist protests. But those have a different standard in the press.
Protest and assembly are the rights of all. Violent extremism is the enemy of all. There is no “winning” in such a clash, only loss. Their enemy is civilized society and the public square. But apparently listing such protests is all it takes to be considered an anti-Semite Nazi shill. Facts are not what people want at a time like this. They would prefer fiction.
John Davidson has more:
“The Left’s damnatio memoriae campaign to tear down Confederate statues shares something in common with the white supremacist impulse to stage tiki-torch rallies in defense of those statues: the ultimate goal isn’t to re-litigate the Civil War but to polarize the American body politic, to force the mainstream into a kind of crude tribalism.
Political violence and street fights of the kind we saw over the weekend in Charlottesville aren’t altogether new in America. We have seen such clashes — albeit less deadly ones — nearly every year for almost a decade. In nearly every case, they have been sought out and instigated by the extreme left.
But Richard Spencer and his sparse band of J. Crew Nazis chose the Lee statue for the site of their rally on Saturday for the simple reason that it was the best location for attracting attention and provoking a violent counter-protest from armed cadres of left-wing street fighters, which it did. They came to town, apparently from all over the country, looking for a fight that would be televised.
That strategy follows a certain logic, especially if your movement is small (estimates of white supremacist attendees were in the hundreds). For the left-wing counterprotesters, showing up en masse to attack such a gathering follows the same logic. The point is to put on a spectacle.
The fact is, neither the extreme left or the extreme right are representative of any significant constituencies in American politics. They do not wield actual power, but they have realized a way to exert out-sized influence through the instigation of publicly staged violence.
John Robb, author of a book on terrorism and social disruption called “Brave New War,” wrote an insightful blog post about how Charlottesville wasn’t really a protest so much as an “open invitation to a public fist fight between left and right.” It was a perfect example of “malicious social disruption” that “widened fault lines and damaged social cohesion at every level” — by design.”
What will divide the country even more, though, is the fact that the right’s elites in media and politics are rushing to concede this battle before it is even joined, without thinking about where it inevitably leads. They are willing to trash the history of a portion of the nation in order to satisfy the American leftist elite, and they will run eagerly to fulfill that task in order to demonstrate how civilized they are. Along the way, they will run rampant over a portion of history that includes recognizable relatives for the World War II generation, toxifying the entire discussion. The direction this leads is much worse than where we currently are – it is the open conflict of a nation at war with itself over its own character. This war will end badly, no matter how it plays out. And the way this story ends is in demolishing Monticello brick by brick.
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The conflict between anti-fascists and fascists has been simmering for decades as they’ve been firing shots at each other and gathering recruits.
The violence in Charlottesville reveals not who we are as Americans, but who we might become if we allow radicalism and totalitarianism to become normalized. In America today, that possibility is most likely to come, not from the radical Right, but from the Left.
To understand this trajectory, we need to know who the players were in this weekend’s violence. Those behind the protest and the counter-protest were not average Americans, but two extremist groups: anti-fascists (Antifas) on the Left (the counter-protestors) and white supremacist nationalists on the Right (the protesters).
These groups did not suddenly appear with the inauguration of Donald Trump. They’ve been around for a very long time. As Peter Beinart explains at The Atlantic:
“Antifa traces its roots to the 1920s and ’30s, when militant leftists battled fascists in the streets of Germany, Italy, and Spain. When fascism withered after World War II, antifa did too. But in the ’70s and ’80s, neo-Nazi skinheads began to infiltrate Britain’s punk scene. After the Berlin Wall fell, neo-Nazism also gained prominence in Germany. In response, a cadre of young leftists, including many anarchists and punk fans, revived the tradition of street-level antifascism.”
In the late ’80s, left-wing punk fans in the United States began following suit, though they initially called their groups Anti-Racist Action, on the theory that Americans would be more familiar with fighting racism than fascism. According to Mark Bray, the author of the forthcoming Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, these activists toured with popular alternative bands in the ’90s, trying to ensure that neo-Nazis did not recruit their fans. In 2002, they disrupted a speech by the head of the World Church of the Creator, a white-supremacist group in Pennsylvania; 25 people were arrested in the resulting brawl.
By the 2000s, as the internet facilitated more transatlantic dialogue, some American activists had adopted the name antifa. But even on the militant left, the movement didn’t occupy the spotlight. To most left-wing activists during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama years, deregulated global capitalism seemed like a greater threat than fascism.
As Beinart mentioned, in 2002, these two groups violently clashed in York, Pennsylvania, with a street brawl that led to the arrest of 25 people, all of them Antifa except two. “The scene was right out of the former East Germany, perhaps, or any of the hundreds of other European venues where ‘antifas’ (anti-fascists) and neo-Nazis have battled it out with clubs, knives and Molotov cocktails,” one report stated. Afterward, the city of 40,000 residents was “left in shock.”
The conflict between anti-fascists and fascists has been simmering for decades as they’ve been firing shots at each other and gathering recruits or engaging in a war of words on the Internet. The rise of Barack Obama pacified the radical Left to some degree, as much of the conflict during his presidency involved Occupy Wall Street and the anti-capitalist gang. But Antifa remained in waiting, finding cover under the broader progressive ideology of the Democratic Party that indirectly supports its totalitarian agenda and tolerates its violence.
With the contentious campaign and election of Donald Trump, Antifa exploded onto the scene, along with its counterpart, the neo-Nazis. The radical Right—a tiny but despicable group—saw in Trump’s America First agenda an opportunity for legitimization.
Despite Trump and his supporters condemning racism, the Left characterized everyone who supported him as “the radical Right.” Loose and even unwanted associations were seen as blood alliances. Never mind that grandma, who wants better border control and loves Trump because he stands for American interests, has nothing to do with a neo-Nazi thug. She and everyone wearing a MAGA red hat have been deemed white supremacists and racists by the Left.
The result of Trump’s rise has been a flood of anarcho-activists joining the secret ranks of Antifa to silence these legions of so-called neo-Nazis who showed up at Trump rallies. “On Inauguration Day, a masked activist punched the white-supremacist leader Richard Spencer,” Beinart writes. “In February, protesters violently disrupted UC Berkeley’s plans to host a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart.com editor. In March, protesters pushed and shoved the controversial conservative political scientist Charles Murray when he spoke at Middlebury College, in Vermont.”
A brawl broke out in New York City on May Day when Antifas clashed with Trump supporters in Times Square. Antifa also participated in the violence at a Trump rally in San Jose, California. The pro-Antifa journal It’s Going Down celebrated the attacks on Trump supporters as “righteous beatings.”
An antifa member is reported saying violence is justified because “resistance is not always safe and pretty, but it is immaculate compared to our monstrous government.” Anyone they determine to be “a fascist, Alt Right, White Nationalist, etc., based on which groups they are a part of and endorse” is targeted.
“Nazis, fascists, white nationalists, anti-Semites and Islamophobes are specific categories, even if they overlap or are subsets or each other. Our main focus is on groups and individuals which endorse, or work directly in alliance with, white supremacists and white separatists. We try to be very clear and precise with how we use these terms.”
Antifa’s violence is closely connected to leftist labeling of Republicans—an important point politicians, thought leaders, and the media need to take seriously. Going back to the 1960s when conservatives were called Nazis for supporting law and order, the label of racist has been a club Democrats have used to beat Republicans into submission. If you’re for border control, you’re a racist. If you oppose affirmative action, you’re a racist. If you want greater opposition to radical Islam, you’re a racist. If you don’t believe there’s institutionalized racism in America, you’re a racist. Basically, if you don’t agree with Democrats, you’re a racist.
This is the climate into which Trump stepped when he ran for president. He pushed against it. He was labeled a racist. His supporters were labeled racists. Of course, lurking there in the shadows were the real racists—the white supremacists—who were happy to have anyone speaking out for national interests and cultural protectionism. They glommed onto Trump and claimed him as their own. Trump, however, denounced the Klu Klux Klan and has rejected racism in all its forms. Mostly, he has ignored the radical right, much as Hillary Clinton ignored the radical leftists who supported her. But the label of racist has stuck.
The narrative that Trump and his supporters are racists has been perpetuated by Democrats—and they’re good at it because they were writing that narrative long before Trump came onto the scene. It has been pushed on social media by leftists and repeated by politicians who stoke the flames of perceived racial inequality, labeling everyone who disagrees with them a racist. Worst, NeverTrump Republicans have indirectly joined with these groups by parroting them in their labeling of Trump and his supporters.
This narrative has been amplified with the Charlottesville clash. Now, everywhere you turn someone on the Right is being accused of racism. Those who don’t characterize the violence the Charlottesville according to the Left’s narrative are racists. All groups who stand for constitutional principles are racists. The National Rifle Association is racist. The entire GOP is racist. Any writer who criticizes Black Lives Matter for its violence is racist. The impression is that racists are everywhere; whites are oppressing blacks; Trump is a danger!
Yet we’ve been hearing very little about the violent anti-fascists the Left has tolerated and even encouraged. We hear complaints about Trump giving a nod to the radical Right, but we hear precious little about Democrats, liberals, and the mainstream Left giving not only a nod but a nudge to the violent radical Left.
“When the masked antifa activist was filmed assaulting Spencer on Inauguration Day, another piece in The Nation described his punch as an act of ‘kinetic beauty,’ Beinart wrote. “Slate ran an approving article about a humorous piano ballad that glorified the assault. Twitter was inundated with viral versions of the video set to different songs, prompting the former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau to tweet, ‘I don’t care how many different songs you set Richard Spencer being punched to, I’ll laugh at every one.’”
Violence against Republicans and anyone deemed a “racist” by the Left has gone mainstream. Now, with actual racists showing up and violence ensuing, Antifa and its supporters in the Democratic Party feel even more justified attacking everyone they’ve judged as a fascist, and many in America are tolerating it or at least deflecting blame onto Republicans.
Fueling this are liberals who have been infecting America with the idea that our country is intrinsically racist—a notion Obama perpetuated. It’s in our DNA, he said. We are racist even if we don’t know we’re racist. We’re not judged by our actions or personal guilt, but by those who have determined our collective guilt because of past injustices, our conservative beliefs, politics, and associations. We are the real danger, not anti-fascists who are actually engaging in violence in their ongoing war with the radical Right.
After decades of labeling anyone who disagrees with the Democratic Party as racist or fascist, many Americans no longer know what real racism looks like. What happens when you think anyone who supports the president and his policies is a racist? What happens when racists are now being seen as a “domestic threat”?
Sen. Ted Cruz announced that the Justice Department should investigate the violence in Charlottesville as domestic terrorism. He mentioned the neo-Nazis, but nothing about the anti-fascists. Only the racists are considered a threat. But “racists” are now anyone who simply wants to build a wall and put America first on the global stage. Isn’t it possible that in this hostile climate, these common, everyday Americans could be branded a domestic threat while the real danger is being purposely ignored? This might not happen today, but it’s possible if a politician who believes the rhetoric of the Left comes into power.
America’s leaders are giving legitimacy to Antifa by downplaying or dismissing its role in the violence. Republicans who ignore the anti-fascists and the labeling they and liberals employ are once again playing the useful idiots because they want to distance themselves from actual racists and escape the label themselves.
Democrats are ignoring them because they fundamentally agree with Antifa’s ideology, if not their tactics. They want to see conservatives, Republicans, and our nation’s principles of liberty destroyed. If that means unleashing the demons of the radical Left or at least downplaying their violence, then so be it.
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