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How exactly did Charlottesville go so wrong?

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A number of articles in the last two weeks raise important questions about the role of the police/government, in generating the Charlottesville tragedy. In presenting some of them below, I’m keeping my tone as neutral as I can.

Aug. 25 from the New York Times, “As White Nationalist in Charlottesville Fired, Police ‘Never Moved’”.

As demonstrators clashed near a downtown park here two weeks ago, a white nationalist protester in a bulletproof vest turned, pointed a pistol toward the crowd and fired a single shot at the ground, in the direction of a black man wielding an improvised torch.

To make his escape, a video recording shows, the armed protester strolled past a line of about a dozen state police troopers who were safely positioned about 10 feet away behind two metal barricades. None of them budged.

“We all heard it and ran — I know damn well they heard it,” said Rosia Parker, a community activist in Charlottesville. “They never moved.”

And so on. They got the shooter later, yay! But why only later? What were the police doing, on-scene? Nothing.

Note: That does not necessarily mean the police were wrong; it could be, rather, that a higher authority gave them bad orders. You will see this become a theme. As NYT puts it, “So stark was the police failure to intervene, many participants in the protest and counterprotests believe it was by design.”

Next, the finger-pointing between local police, Virginia state police, and various politicians (including Gov. Terry McAuliffe – D). From the above NYT article:

The city did not use a number of security measures recommended by the state police, said Brian Moran, Virginia’s secretary of public safety and homeland security, including a ban on weapons and sticks of all kinds. The state also proposed designating parking areas, busing protesters and cutting off traffic for at least 10 blocks. None of that happened, he said…

The organizers of the rally said the [local] police had unilaterally changed details that they spent weeks negotiating, such as how they would safely enter and exit the park. “They didn’t follow through on any part of their plan,” said one of the coordinators…“They threw the whole thing away without telling us.” The changes involved every aspect of logistics, he said, including where counterprotesters would be, which streets would be blocked and how V.I.P.s would enter.

More from Breitbart:

From The Washington Free Beacon on Aug. 14, more on the finger-pointing between the Virginia State Police and Gov. McAuliffe: [Read more…]

A tragedy staged? or at least allowed?

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I’ve seen numerous reports and on-scene videos that, in Charlottesville yesterday, Antifa/BlackLivesMatter attacked the “WhiteLivesMatter” (for lack of a precise word) marchers freely, seeking trouble. Per Powerline, even a New York Times reporter agrees:

[A NYT journalist] was on the scene yesterday. She noted on Twitter: “The hard left seemed as hate-filled as alt-right. I saw club-wielding ‘antifa’ beating white nationalists being led out of the park.”

None of which would ever justify James Alex Fields’ alleged murderous assault with his car; but the justice system will handle Fields. My point here is, the “other” relevant facts that may be lost in the media frenzy. As our fine commenters have noted,

  • The WLM marchers had a permit. (Which the ACLU had to help them get.)
  • Antifa/BLM didn’t.
  • Both sides showed up ready for trouble, armed with sticks, helmets, pepper spray, shields, rocks, etc.
  • Antifa/BLM started at least some of the trouble. (Some would say most.)
  • The police were careful about controlling the WLM marchers at first; but did nothing to control Antifa/BLM, and vanished (or dragged their feet or sat idly by) as conflicts broke out.

“[The police] had an opportunity to nip this thing in the bud, and chose not to”, says a different on-scene journalist:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Z07rbkFSY[/youtube]

You could build a story of the Left playing one of its old tricks: Instigate trouble, let it flourish (e.g., deny full police protection), then make sure the other side is blamed for everything. Like when VA Governor McAuliffe denounced the WLM types, but not Antifa/BLM.

It comes to mind because we saw it done in the Berkeley riots earlier this year. A controversial speaker was going to speak; leftie protestors made violent trouble; police held back; things got bad; authorities then said “Look, this proves we are right to shut down speakers whom the Left doesn’t like,” granting the Left a Heckler’s Veto to deny the rights of others.

Again, none of this excuses racist losers in any form. And none of this excuses the serious, alleged crime of James Alex Fields. It will be interesting to get more details on his deal. When I saw his picture, my gut reaction was “zombie” – but I couldn’t say whether mentally ill, on drugs, programmed, abuse victim, plain evil sociopath, or some combination.

It will also be interesting to see if Charlottesville police are going to be in for some lawsuits.

Antifa and #WhiteLivesMatter deserve each other

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#WhiteLivesMatter is the term I’ll use here for the conglomeration of different “white identitarian”, “white nationalist”, “alt-Right”, “KKK”, “neo-Nazi” or “neo-Confederate” people who marched together in Charlottesville, VA on Saturday – and got into fights/riots with Antifa-type counter-marchers.

Gov. Terry McAullife declared a state of emergency shortly before 11 a.m. ET, moments before the rally was scheduled to begin at noon at Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, according to a tweet sent from the Democratic governor’s Twitter account. Using megaphones, police declared an unlawful assembly at about 11:40 a.m., and gave a five-minute warning to leave Emancipation Park, where hundreds of neoNazis, Ku Klux Klans members and other white nationalists had gathered to protest the removal of a Confederate statue. They were met by equal numbers of “counterprotesters,” including Black Lives Matter activists…

Apparently, the detestable Richard Spencer was there, got sucker-punched and/or maced, and that set off some of the melee. Several people reported other attacks by the BLM/Antifa side. Most horribly, someone from the #WhiteLivesMatter side drove a car into the BLM/Antifa crowd and injured people. (It’s unclear to me, how much related these incidents may be.) And two State police were killed in a helicopter crash.

Here’s my overall take.

  • Robert E. Lee is one of the important and fairly-honorable figures in American history; traditional statues of him either should not, or at least need not, be taken down. As such, the #WhiteLivesMatter types may have a point on that one, little issue.
  • Having said that: I run with #AllLivesMatter. I have no problem denouncing white nationalism or white ethnic identitarianism (like I did, here). Especially if the people turn violent. I hereby denounce it again.
  • And of course, I denounce Antifa and #BlackLivesMatter, especially if they turn violent.
  • An ideal outcome might be if any/all of those who committed crimes Saturday, on either side, will have to spend some jail time together. Paired in cells, if possible.
  • To the extent that many people (on either side) did NOT commit any crimes and expressed themselves peacefully: Kudos. Although, again, I probably don’t agree on many issues with either side.
  • President Trump has condemned hatred, bigotry and violence coming from any side…whoa, looks like I agree with Trump again! How does that keep happening?

P.S. The Controlled Media and the Left (but I repeat myself) are much to blame for what happened today, because they have pretty consistently failed to denounce Antifa, BLM, or violence coming from the Left. (Unlike we on the liberty-loving #AllLivesMatter Right, who have no problem denouncing violence from any or all sides.)

When the Left won’t properly stigmatize or denormalize violence from lefties, then both violent lefties and their krazier #WhiteLivesMatter type of opponents are going to feel agitated, and these fights will break out easily.

As always, feel free to post your take in the comments.

It takes awhile

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…but sometimes there’s justice.

Remember that UVa “campus rape culture” hoax that bubbled up in 2014? Recent news is that Rolling Stone will pay settlement damages to the fraternity they accused.

A source involved at the national level with the fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, tells TheDC that Rolling Stone will pay $1.65 million to settle the defamation suit…

In the piece, “A Rape on Campus,” Erdely relayed the story of Jackie Coakley, a Virginia woman who claimed she was brutally raped by a group of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity members during a party in Sept. 2012.

Separately, a UVa dean also got damages:

The magazine’s decision follows a settlement in April with Nicole Eramo, a University of Virginia associate dean who was also smeared in the article, which was written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely…

Erdely portrayed Eramo as dismissive of Coakley’s case. But it was later revealed that Coakley not only fabricated the attack by the fraternity members but that Eramo took her allegations seriously at the time she made them.

A jury in Virginia awarded Eramo $3 million in damages — $2 million from Erdely and $1 million from Rolling Stone.

I don’t know what has happened to the original accuser, Jackie Coakley?

While I’m at it:

Virginia ’13: the Obama/McAuliffe game plan of attack politics

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In a few hours, we will likely learn that prolific Democratic fundraiser Terry McAuliffe has been elected Governor of Virginia.

And much as we can predict that result, we can alos predict the reactions.  The Democrats (and their allies in the mainstream media) will depict it as a repudiation of conservatism, a rejection of the ideas espoused by the Tea Party.  Certain Tea Party conservatives will fault the GOP establishment for not adequately supporting Republican gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli.  And some establishment Republican will contend that McAuliffe’s victory proves that Tea Party conservatives cannot win in swing states.

And that will all be wrong.  Should Cuccinelli as expected, lose, there will be a number of reasons for his defeat, with standing out.  First, he was a lousy candidate who ran a lousy campaign, never really putting forward a positive message.   And, second (somewhat related to the first), McAuliffe is a prolific fundraiser, able to raise millions of dollars to run a nasty campaign against the Republican.  In other words, he basically followed the Obama ’12 game plan.  He out-raised and outspent the Republican, going early to the airwaves to smear his opponent.

It’s all the Democrats have left–demonizing the Republicans.

And Cuccinellli made an easy target.  Sean Trende explains:

Cuccinelli’s problem in a nutshell is this: The Old Dominion would probably vote for a candidate who had sued a professor at the University of Virginia over his climate science research. It would probably vote for a candidate who referred to homosexuality as unnatural. It would probably vote for a candidate who tried to limit no-fault divorce. It would probably vote for a candidate who covered up an exposed breast on the state seal. It would probably vote for a candidate who wasn’t sure if the president was born in the United States. It would probably vote for a candidate who told colleges and universities to strip protections for gays and lesbians.

What it won’t typically do is vote for a candidate who holds all of these positions, and is unapologetic in them. [Read more…]