Saturday, August 12, 2017

The Alt-Right's Coming Out

It's no surprise that the Alt Right has chosen the plan to remove the statue of southern General Robert E. Lee from the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville as the occasion for its official debut on television.  Last night's torchlight march is a neo-fascist meme that has been prominent both with France's National Front and Ukraine's neo-Nazi militias who provided the muscle in the Maidan when the US engineered the overthrow of the pro-Russian govenment in 2014.

Today's Unite the Right rally resulted in a state of emergency being announced at noon on the campus, and as anti-fascist groups (known as 'antifa') demonstrated across the country, the Democratic Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe extended it statewide.

Havana's Malekon, 2011
One televison anchor opined that the support of people like David Duke, head of the Ku Klux Klan, during the presidential campaign, as well as of the publisher of Breitbart News, Steve Bannon, were part of a deliberate plan to galvanize  the far-right white supremacist movement.

It is no coincidence that the far-right should rise to national promince just days after the convention of Democratic Socialists of America gathered the largest number of American socialists since World War II.  In the wake of the Bernie Sanders campaign, the  DSA increased its membership from 6,500 in May 2016, t0 25,000 dues-paying members today.

At twelve-thirty today Saturday, as violent clashes are broadcast, the President still had not commented.  Yesterday, he threatened not only North Korea with military action, but also Venezuela.

1:30: After the First Lady  tweeted against violence, the president had to follow.  It's not the first time that I feel sorry for Melania Trump.

P.S. For the bigger picture of the Alt-Right's paranoia, see http://www.otherjones.com/2015/03/in-europe-arithmetic-of-otherness-and.html, and

http://www.otherjones.com/search?q=The+Alt+and+New+Rights



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