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Why are they receiving all the blame when Antifa and BLM started the violence?

They had a permit to march, and the night before they had the tiki-torch march without incident. But the day of the event BLM and Antifa showed up with baseball bats and pipes, coke cans full of cement, acid in spray bottles, and bricks, without a permit to counter protest, and then start attacking the unarmed Nazis unprovoked, the Nazis get blamed?

Imagine living only 5 or so years after World War 2 in Europe, and then seeing the phrase "Why are the Nazis being blamed for the violence" being made 100 years later in a questioning, sympathetic manner.

They got blamed because they're fucking Nazis.

What more do you want?

The left has a larger presence on the online mainstream. As such, they're being put in an echo chamber. They turn a blind eye to the left attacking peaceful protestors, and instead focus on the right defending themselves. This self defense is what people share with their friends, upvote on reddit, publish on news sites, so they can show how evil and despicable the right truly is. Then someone drives his car into some folk, and since he associates himself with the right-wing movement, they see the right wing as sharing his ideals. To them, they're all murderers.

But this isn't a newly formed idea of the right, it's what the left's always "known" them to be like. And this just strengthens and "confirms" their notion. Confirmation bias and such.

[Imagine living only 5 or so years after World War 2 in Europe, and then seeing the phrase “Why are the Nazis being blamed for the violence” being made 100 years later in a questioning, sympathetic manner.]

you neglect to mention the COMMUNIST thing. If you were living in 1950s Europe you might understand why someone would be questioning why Communists were receiving no blame.

(also, it's the current year not 2045)

From what I understand in your post, you feel it's unfair for the left-leaning political side to be portrayed in a continually positive light whilst the right gets demonized, is that right?

I can understand why you'd sy it's false reporting and so on, as it minimizes the violent actions of neo-communists/liberals and what-have-you for the purpose of furthering an inclusionary public mindset or narrative, whatever, but it's late and I'm not in the right state of mind to discuss this properly.

I just find the idea that I stated to be very surreal, is all; the fact that associating, or identifying, with extremists isn't seen as a bad thing. Amazing.

That's more of what I was getting at, it's not support of the white nationalists/nazis, it's wondering why they receive all the blame when Antifa/communists started the violence.

Also, European people on here don't seem to realize American Antifa is a thing that popped up here recently and hasn't done much other than attack random Trump supporters and moderate-right while giving them the title of Nazi, disrupt college campuses, and destroy public property. They're attacking actual Nazis now at least.

>brings up an ideea from the opposite end of the political spectrum
>"lol fuck OFF u nazi scum xD"
Good to see you've never changed Jimmy.

The concept of European people having any sort of nationalist sentiment is absolutely unimaginable. You just can't have that. Like literally, you can go to some reactionary, quasi-fascist country like Russia, and you'll still go to jail for "hate speech" against minorities (people do), and you will still be demonized by the media if you talk about hundreds of thousands of Central Asian migrants arriving yearly.

And then imagine using symbols associated with Nazism to wrap up this nationalist sentiment like a total retard. So you take something that's absolutely unacceptable to begin with (European nationalism), while presenting yourself like a Nazi. We're conditioned to view Nazism as something beyond good and evil, something you don't argue about. You can argue about Communism or any other ideology, but hating Nazism is basically a modern religious dogma. Defending Nazism is like defending Satan in the Middle Ages.

tl;dr: if you behave like a retard and a convenient target, people won't miss a chance to use it against you.

Just another thing I thought I'd bring up in this regard.

I remember awhile back when there was another group that was hated in a similar manner to Nazis, and I feel still warrant it (because they idolize a backwards methodology that ultimately hurts more people in the end than it actually helps).

However, nowadays people seem to be veering away from this hate and starting to question why they were hated to begin with, even though their group was associated with several horrible dictatorships and several atrocities involving the death of hundreds of thousands. In fact, people have even started flying their flags here again.

I'm guessing you all know who I'm talking about.

If we're going to punish one radical ideology for being very dangerous, then we should just as equally punish the other ideologies as well.

Remember, both Nazis and communists aren't good for America.

Media bias, corrupt power structure built during the Obama administration, social stigma that anything outside of the extreme Left Authoritarian being deemed wrong think… take your pick…
Both sides are in the wrong, but this only happened because the Left can't handle other opinions existing… The Right isn't really clean handed in this, but at least they wont through proper channels to have the right to gather…
None of these conflicts would happen if the Left hadn't pushed things this far…

Is this thread serious? The left didn't drive down a bunch of protesters and kill one of them. The left isn't given a benefit of the doubt and are blamed by "economic anxiety" and "political correctness" like I stated in earlier posts in the earlier thread. The left wasn't responsible for beating a black man near death on video to get no justice. Comparing Black Lives Matter and Antifa to people who support the genocide of millions is nonsensical and downright idiotic.

Don't forget that the leftists aren't getting book deals. They aren't verified on Twitter. White Supremacists get to order burger King after killing black church members while those who protested Trumps Inauguration are facing 90 years of prison time. Acting like both sides are the same when one has been propped up for decades is heavily inaccurate.

Because "They started it" doesn't work on your mother, and it doesn't work with most people.

I'd like to say it's more complicated than that, but it's really not. That was not a self-defense situation, and the charges pressed against him reflect that. Gen. Sessions within the current executive administration said that himself. After a hot minute, President Trump said it himself.

This guy has no defense for running over people. Especially if he backed up and ran over more people.

Frankly, if he was timid enough to panic while in a Dodge Charger, then he (that one individual) shouldn't have been at the protest (if extremist left is as violent as people say, then why be in the middle of them…) and certainly not in the midst on the crowd of anti-protesters in a car where your defense options are limited to vehicular homicide.

Somehow, this individual was the only person who happened to navigate himself into that dangerous predicament.

I hope those who hurt his car with sticks, bricks, and soda cans are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law with 30 days in the local jail and 9 months of community service.

I'll never excuse violence in situations like this. But I'll also not sympathize or excuse this guy either.

Just accept that a maniac who's a white nationalist was ready to kill others, and he goaded angry people to surround him in a vehicle long after he should have left.

Judging an entire area of the political spectrum based on one person's actions is fallacious. There is a distinction between the individual and the collective. "The left didn't drive down a bunch of protesters," true, and neither did "the right". You don't see the people parading the streets cheering for the bloodshed. Just like you didn't see BLM cheering during last year's shooting in Austin, and like you don't see muslim communities cheering at the attacks across Europe over the past couple of years.

People should not be mobbed down for holding opinions. Opinions find their validity in those that hold them, so while you and many others may strongly oppose someone's opinions, a lot of people could just as well contend yours. Am I saying that the nazis are right in wanting to kill all nonwhites? No, nazis are fucking retarded. But that's why we set up democracy. I trust that most people are above those lowly thoughts. If they continue to march and shout out their opinions and keep away from doing any mass action, one can hope that the opinions will stay niche, and perhaps even dwindle. What if the incredibly unlikely scenario happens where they don't? What if it turns out the majority of America starts absolutely aching for the death of nonwhites? I'd be quite upset, as would you most likely, but why should our opinions then suddenly be worth more than that of the majority? Because we think they're better?

Onto the next thing you brought up; while I don't really follow the going-ons of twitter or the american book publishing business, from an outsider perspective it doesn't seem like the left is being opressed or at some sort of gross disatvantage when it comes to this. People on the right have been pushed off sites like reddit and twitter en masse, so it doesn't seem like they're targeting a specific ideological group, just rude folk in general. But again, I don't have any numbers on this, so I could be wrong.

Is this reply serious? The right didn’t shoot a bunch of congressmen at a baseball game and permanently disable one. The Right isn’t given a benefit of the doubt and are blamed by “systematic racism” and “police brutality” like I stated in earlier posts in the earlier thread. The right wasn’t responsible for torturing and beating an autistic white man near death on video to get no justice. the Alt-right to people who support the genocide of millions is nonsensical and downright idiotic.

Don’t forget that the leftists are getting book deals. They are verified on Twitter. Black Supremacists get to visit the white house after killing nearly a dozen cops in Dallas while those who leaked DNC emails are dead. Acting like both sides are the same when both have been propped up for decades is heavily accurate.

@verbose
the Duke of Hazard wasn't the only act of violence during the event, there were tons of people injured before that.

Can we stop calling the Neo-Nazi's and White-Nationalists "The Right" and stop calling Anifta and BLM "The Left"?

None of these groups represent the 100+ Million people that make up "The Right" or "The Left", blaming this event on the Right or Left is saying anyone whose political ideology swings to one side or the other shares blame in this.

This event was caused by the Nazi protesters and Anifta/BLM anti-protesters, no one else (unless their is a group I'm missing) Equating these groups with an entire political spectrum is contributing to the problem that caused this event in the first place. The second we stop thinking everyone on the other side of the Aisle is bad and wrong and stop using the actions of extremists to justify that view, the second we can actually discuss the issues leading up to this like actual human beings.

Until that happens, please enjoy your polarized political violence.

It's disappointing to see that this site hasn't improved any at all since I last visited.

Have we really reached a point where literal Nazis can commit an act of terrorism not at all unlike those committed by members of ISIS in recent years, and the reaction is not universal condemnation but "REEEEEEEEE COMMIES SHOT FIRST!!!!!"?

If someone on your side of the political spectrum commits a blatantly deliberate act of murder and your first instinct is to try and shift blame to the bogeyman on the other side, you need to take a long, hard look at yourself and your ideology.

'Dis gonna be gud

One may as well watch as this political fire burns in front of them.

@Snickerway
Seeing some people REEEEEE and say "commies shot first", it's nothing more than just an attempt at excusing shit like with the incident where someone got ran over and whiteknighting the Right/Nazi's/whatever the hell one side in this shit-storm is. ANTIFA/commies/whatever the other side is can be violent and all but regarding Charlottesville, the Nazis are the ones that shot first.

2 Reasons I can think of
1. By going to Virginia with sticks and shields, the argument could be made that the Nazi side were expecting, maybe even wanting a fight. This would negate the argument of self defense by invoking the concept of "fighting words"
2. For everything that Antifa have done, to my knowledge, they haven't killed someone yet

For a long time I've said that people should stop using the words "right" and "left". Those used to be words to label economic AND social stances on policy (already a bad thing because people don't know which one you're talking about, and also because there is too much nuance to realistically condense an entire stance into one word), now they mean whatever the fuck people want them to mean.

Thus, they no longer serve their purpose as labels and should be discarded. They are useless words and only serve to create more confusion than understanding. Either go back to entirely describing the economic/social policies you are talking about, or create new words for them.

Remember, labels are meant to simplify discussion. If they complicate it instead, they are bad labels and should not be used.

People come to rallies prepared because Antifa is consistently violent. They were, indeed, expecting a fight, as they should have.

While i don't think they started the violence, actually its hard to tell who started what in that stirred up hornets nest, what they did do was greatly escalate the situation, that's fairly obvious.

Regardless of whether or not someone pepper sprayed some guy with a nazi flag or threw rocks at alt-right members or some shit, that doesn't justify mowing down a crowd of innocent people with a car. I know that point has already been made a 100 times, but i feel like it needs to be drilled home just a little bit more

Extremism is the enemy of any free society regardless of the party it comes from.

This round we’re just focussing on the dude who slamdunked his car into a crowd.

I'm not sure if the people who bring attention to antifa or BLM and their hand in the violence are trying to make the point that we shouldn't pay attention to the guy who plowed his car into a crowd-- or, maybe not all the people.

I want to give more complete thought on this and I've been mulling it for a while, but I think there's a grand issue in orienting ourselves from tragedy to tragedy instead of looking at the greater timeline.

We already had two instances of political violence where parts of cities were trashed in the first quarter of the year alone. We've already had an instance of political violence where four politicians were shot at and wounded-- and given that people usually shoot to kill, as per the purpose of a gun, I can't imagine their still being alive as anything else than a fluke on the part of the shooter. And now we have this. To say nothing about antifa and militant BLM, in addition to the now openly militant portions of the alt-right, militant either in reaction to the militant antifa, or preemptively geared towards violence.

Our political violence is escalating all around, it seems-- and to be expected, honestly, given that from Richard Spencer being decked and the first chant of the mantra of "bash the fash", we've been normalizing political violence more and more. Heck, since the people cracking unsettlingly less joking jokes about assassinating Trump, we've been normalizing political violence.

That's… part of what's concerning.

What's also concerning is that this time, there are many who are wrapped up in exclusively condemning the neo-Nazis here just because someone died, as if the situation demands it, and as if political violence is just happening. Even mentioning that antifa and BLM got belligerent is enough to get accused of whataboutery. Heck, elsewhere, I've seen even mentioning this as a symptom of a bigger issue be called whataboutery.

That's not the point. At least, it's not my point. In pointing out that the militant left seemed to have escalated first, I'm not trying to divert attention from the fact that the militant right is now openly militarizing in similar fashion-- rather, I'm trying to point out that this is far from the first time something of this general nature has happened, and it's part of something more sinister. And I'll tell you what the issue probably is-- and you'll think I'm some sort of hippie for it, but I'll live with it:

A modicum of forbearance and empathy. Understanding that those who live by the sword, die by it as well. The maturity to not make effigies out of groups of people, to not try to cater to a feeling of self-righteousness to cloud yourself from realizing that you're actually a pretty terrible person in at least some regard-- as I'm sure many of these people do.

The white nationalists latch on to statistics they twist to make their point that they're superior to black people because they have a higher average IQ and talk about how a lower average IQ is the only thing that causes the poverty and struggle in Africa--as if Africa is a single country-- to mask their stunning averageness or below-averageness; the alt-left arbitrarily labels those who fall out of their social orthodoxy as racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or Islamophobic in order to fill the gaping void in their souls, obfuscate their lust for control probably motivated by a life wherein they feel they have none, and mask just how terrible they at least feel they are at being good people.

Of course, when people decide that the solution to the problem is gloating about how we should have punched the Nazis back into hiding-- as I've seen in the article's comment section for the rally, admittedly rarely so far--it tells me two things:

1. These people are beyond idiotic. People in persistent vegetative states would beat them in every single measure of intelligence that we have currently conceived. They're legitimately immature-- being slightly facetious, I doubt that they're old enough to go on the internet without their parents' permission. They care for nothing more than the "defeat" of the Voldemort that they've created out of a section of society that they have superficial fears of but not the deep fear that comes out of a anything resembling a deep understanding of said enemy, both of which would prevent them from eagerly treating them as a Saturday morning cartoon on steroids.

2. These people live from outrage to outrage. They don't care about the greater picture-- they might not even know that events like these are cumulative. They might not have even been mired in politics until that Saturday, and if they have, they'd be able to fool me. There's a chance some of these people don't even care about anybody that's involved in political violence, given how shortsighted they reveal themselves to be by advocating political violence all over again.

Unfortunately, I'm not quite optimistic that this will apply to less people as time goes on. In fact, I'm sure this is going to be used as a somewhat weighty "I told you so!" of the radical left to encourage more political violence going forward.

How are you still conflating the individual with the group without making any argument for the two to be seen as the same? If you had an argument that would be great. No, really, I'd love to see one, because right now I really don't understand this perspective. Currently you're just retorting using a view of the situation that has, previously in the thread, been argued against, but you're not providing any extra perspective on why the group and the individual are equivalent and should be seen as such, and why it's fallacious to see the two as separate. Why bother participating in the debate if you're not planning on reading what other people have said?

I do find it interesting the helicopter crash is included in the causality list of the violence, despite it having nothing to do with the protesters or anti-protesters.

?️ill the ?️utcher said:

…something you don’t argue about…

And therein lies the problem. If you don't talk about it--if you don't discuss it and show why it's a bad ideology, then you shouldn't be surprised when people get pulled in by those who do talk about it, only positively. You can't fight something by being ignorant to it. Chamberlain proved as much back in the '30s.

I think its included because they were asked to cover the protest from helicopter. Even if the cause was indirect the fact remains that had the protest not happened those cops wouldn't have taken the helicopter out and they wouldn't have died.

I don't see how you interpreted my post to imply that the civil rights movement is equivalent to white supremacy, nor how you seem to think that I think that racism doesn't exist in America. Racism definitely exists in America. To a ridiculous degree, to this day. You seem to think I think that your nation had full equality since its inception, which I most definitely don't. The only mention I made of race was the mention of BLM, a mention in which I specifically said that they shouldn't be criticized because of the actions of one individual claiming devotion to them. I would recommend rereading that pargraph, because you seem to have missed the gist of it. If you still think I hold these bizarre opinions, I'd be happy for you to point out exactly how you came to the conclusion, so that I can perhaps improve in my formulations in the future.

I do believe we have some different forms of generalizations going on here, so it's understandable that you would find it hypocritical that I would use one and condemn another.

Consider the first post I made; I talk about "the left" harassing "the right" and it turning into a fight. Am I referring to everyone with left leanings and everyone with right leanings? No, I'm not. I'm left leaning, but I wasn't out fighting Richard Spencer the other day. The labels I use here are simply the easiest ones to use when referring to people participating in various clashes across america. One group of individuals fights another group of individuals, but the groups make sure not to attack their own. So what makes the groups know who to attack and who not to attack? It's not just a random pub fight. The sides in the fights are divided by their political leanings and their intent to disrupt the other side, so it is easiest to use the political leanings to label the sides. You might think it would be better to label the clash as "the nazis" versus "the antifa", which you'd be right in, it would be perfectly fine, I just wasn't sure if there were other groups like the KKK or the tea party involved.

In the second post I scorn the generalization of using one person's actions to define the intent of the group they've sworn allegience to. How is this any different, you may wonder? Let's make a simplified scenario to show my thinking, feel free to point out flaws.

Pretend you have 100 people in a town. The town is holding a vote on what colour its flag should be. 25 people are really keen on the colour blue, while 25 are hot for the colour red. There are other people in the town who prefer either red or blue, but they're not as strong in their beliefs. The reds are promoting their colour of choice to the 50 other people, which the blues aren't really fans of. The blues come to the promotion and start arguing with the reds, someone shoves someone else, someone yells at someone, and eventually a fight breaks out.

The fight is between the reds and the blues, even though there are people in the other 50 who have milder preferences towards either colour, since the colour of choice is the uniting feature of each side. The labels here do not say anything about the the people involved other than their general beliefs, and the beliefs of people within the group that aren't related to flag colours might even differ wildly.

Now, let's say one of the blues pulls out a gun and starts shooting reds. He kills a bunch of them before he's stopped. This was not the actions of the blues. The blue ideology concerns flag colours, not spontaneous murder. As soon as he pulled out the gun, he made a clear distinction between himself and the local label. The blues were clashing with the reds specifically because of their flag colour beliefs, not much else. The clash was without intent to kill, just to disrupt or chase off the other side, so the labels still worked since their intent remained shared. Should the actions of the one murderer define the rest of the group, who had no idea he planned to do it, and who oppose his actions? Should the people in the audience who only sort of like blue be held accountable? I don't think so, and that's what I've been trying to convey.

Lastly, as I said in my post I don't know much about the goings on on twitter, but I'd be happy to know more. Do you think you could link me to some material on the silencing of the left? And if someone who disagrees with him on this has some material showing otherwise, feel free to post that as well. I would be interested in having a look at it.

If you think the Nazis/White Supremacists only now started bringing weapons and torches because Antifa started being violent around last year you're being disingenuous.

If you think that these groups have only started getting violent because Antifa became violent, what do you think made Antifa start becoming violent then?

Zozzler wrote:

what do you think made Antifa start becoming violent then?

The only disingenuous person around is you if you honestly think that anybody's going to sit down to demonstrate even minimally how preemptive violence against the perceived threat of fascism to "stop it from even getting the chance to grow" is a foundational principle of Antifa.

I wasn't pretending Antifa's whole identity isn't violence against fascism or "fascism" that is more often the case, I was asking why Antifa has started to show up now prominently in the United States. What could they perceive as a re-rise in the American Far-Right?

It might have to do with the fact that the Nazi ideology is inherently genocidal while communism isn't and while communism has killed more people over all, it has also existed in a significant way for much longer with both China and the USSR having it vs Nazism only being a significant party within Germany. Also it has to do with the fact that it was a Neo-nazi not a communist.

Do I care?

Should I care?

Oh, I suppose I should care, since they were doing alt-right PR for months by making them look less crazy.

>Thread title refers to counter-protesters as "commies"
>Defending Nazis

>Implying Antifa isn't a marxist organization
>Implying the IWW isn't marxist
>Implying these groups haven't been on a violent tirade recently

Imma repeat what like 50 other people in this thread have said already and say both sides are shit but we need to focus on the actual Nazis actually killing people right now.

Both sides have had members who hav been trying to kill people for months, lest we forget the left wing side had a member shoot a senator not so long ago. One side finally succeeding doesnt make those attempts dissapear.

>had a member shoot a senator

I think you mean four politicians.

And to be fair, the "left wing" is even less of a concrete group than antifa, which is less of a concrete group than BLM, but the point stands.

I've also considered the following: has… anyone on the MSM actually talked about antifa or BLM at the rally, when they weren't supposed to be counter-protesting where UtR was rallying, moreover?

I watched a video that mentioned that they haven't, and to be fair, I don't watch MSM as such, but I've been mired in the reaction and outrage, and I just realized that not only is mentioning BLM and antifa a one-way ticket to getting you crucified for "whataboutery", almost regardless of context, nobody's mentioning that they were there. Like, at all. And then those who say that they were go on to say "well, that doesn't matter because they didn't kill anyone"… but they still injured people in belligerence.

I considered the possibility that we're being played by fiddles right now.

"I considered the possibility that we’re being played by fiddles right now."

It's true, you are.
The nazis and white supremacists have latched on and are using you, Now you are boned because everything is now totally overshadowed by the fact that nazis stormed a town and ran over a crowd killing someone.
That's a tough act to follow.
It weakens you, not strengthens you.
The President, love em or leave em, stumbled in his response to the nazis that the alt-right unleashed – and now he has got big problems regardless of whether you think it's fair.
The ripples from the colossal error in holding that rally are traveling far and wide.

The same is true with the left and antifa to a lesser degree. The Women's March was hugely successful and peaceful but it was almost overshadowed by anarchist antifa burning cars the day before.

But the focus of Charlottesville, as you point out, is squarely on the right. Fair or unfair, that's a thing that happened and it changed the game. To not adjust would be an error. Whatever people's true feelings are, flying nazi flags hurts you.
Regardless of the hypocrisy, the left flying Soviet Flags hurts them way way less.
I think we can all agree on that.

We must all appeal to our better angels if for no other reason than to do otherwise weakens our respective causes.

No SJWs are not fascists, you know why?
Because fascism, in its basic form advocated that you must be devoted to the state
"Nothing against the state"
Not you religion, not your gender, not your race, the state.
Also, one question. How retarded must you be to not we difference between national socialism and fascism.

This is why I never liked far-leaning political stances, it just breeds self-justification whatever the costs.
These wankjobs at the rally only caused a ruckus and refused to be down to Earth and try to settle this in how a proper protest should be: without physical contact of opposing parties. They don’t deserve a single but of sympathy from me.

The interesting thing to me is how the reporting has been done. No reporter worth the title goes into a situation without an idea about the story they are assigned to write. They do their homework and then they report -- usually confirming the things they found out in doing their homework. Thus, reporting is more story telling than reporting, and as such, the goal is to produce a "compelling" piece of journalism -- one which produces strong emotional reactions in the audience. That's what sells papers, or more correctly in today's media market, captures eye-balls.

The "narrative" then is a story the media wish to tell. The best way to do this is to have compelling images of somebody doing or saying something violent or as close to violent as possible. And if you can get them right next to the one who would be the recipient of that violence, all the better. Drama sells and there is no greater drama than the slaughter of the innocent, whomever they be (though we do hope and believe that even reporters would rather have metaphorical violence rather than actual violence).

From this we learn the media have little reason to actually present anything "objectively" because to sell stories they have to focus on the most emotionally stimulating things in the situation. If there is no drama there is no story. And if you attempt to present "both" sides on equal footing you are just shooting yourself in the foot. Anything that lowers the viewers/readers emotional response is not needed or even sometimes wanted.

As a result most stories focus on the human victim (or victims) and portray the actions and words of the "victimizers" as extreme and (obviously) motivated by some immoral and despicable weakness of character…"hatred," "bigotry,", "racism", etc…all of which are quite handy to use as descriptors since they are vague and easily assumed to be true by those watching/reading the report.

In the national narrative we currently experience there are bad actors and good actors. The bad actors are on the far right for the most part -- just as they were on the far left in the 1960's -- and thus they can be freely demonized and used to instill fear in the hearts and minds of those who read/listen/watch the media reports. "Fear, and outrage" are the bread and butter of good reporting.

Those on the left who engage in the same behaviors though, are usually within the pale of the good guys and are given some leeway. They can, with a certain amount of wink-wink condemnation, engage in tearing down buildings, destroying property and threatening to kill politicians they don't like, because they are on the side of justice. They are often portrayed as the "victims" and thus their "rage" is justified even if what they destroy has little or nothing to do with their plight. This may appear a criticism, and it is, but it is also just a way of explaining why the main stream media is perceived by those on the right as being biased. The problem is not that the main stream media isn't biased, it's that they all wish to tell the same story -- a story they seem to believe is true and which they all seem to think all Americans believe is true. Thus, when they report the do so within the context of a story they wish to repeat and reinforce. So they point to the side shows, the terrible and isolated (and hopefully rare) acts of violence and make that the story. If it's violence on the side of those who have been cast as the victims (and they also actually be the victims, btw) it's justified by the rage they feel as victims. If it's on the side cast as "victimzers" it's obviously a product of their hatred and stupidity.

Just some thoughts.

AJ

It's all in the story being written. In Charlottesville the bad victimzers were in full force. They were the bad guys. That's the narrative we've been on (thankfully, I might add) for at least sixty years. That the good guys crossed the line is somewhat justified by the fact that they were "defending" our society. The ends do justify the means as long as you agree with the ends, after all.

Once you recognize the structure of the reporting what comes as a surprise is not how much the press ignored the actions of the left, but how much the accommodated the right through interviews and such. That they did so, of course, has been roundly condemned by many exactly because you don't let the bad actors have center stage.

AJ