Charleston shooting political thread 2: guns, God, and Confederate values

[DanteGabriel]

A manifesto has been found:

In the manifesto, the writer spewed vitriol at black people, Jews, and other minority groups, writing that white people belong to a “superior” race.

The author called blacks “the biggest problem for Americans” and explained "the event that truly awakened me" as a racist was the killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager in Florida who was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman. The manifesto said it was "obvious" that Zimmerman, who was eventually acquitted of murder, "was in the right."

In the wake of the Martin killing, the author wrote about coming across the website of a once-prominent white nationalist group called the Council of Conservative Citizens.

"There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief," the manifesto's author wrote. "At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?"

In a section labeled “An Explanation,” the writer said, “I have no choice….We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/website-dylann-roof-white-supremacist-manifesto-photos

How long will Santorum et al keep on this "it was an attack on religious liberty" horseshit?

[drawkcabi]

In perpetuity or as long as the right wing echo bubble remains intact, which is close to the same thing. Same with how long they will deny climate change is real when faced with the consensus of scientists saying it is so or that abstinence only works or any of that.

I don't think there's a mechanism to accept the facts of the matter once a spin cycle has been so efficiently created.

[Westerosi Coast Gangster]

Sad.

[Shryke]

In perpetuity or as long as the right wing echo bubble remains intact, which is close to the same thing. Same with how long they will deny climate change is real when faced with the consensus of scientists saying it is so or that abstinence only works or any of that.

I don't think there's a mechanism to accept the facts of the matter once a spin cycle has been so efficiently created.

More importantly, both their beliefs in either racism not existing or racism itself and their political stances preclude their ability to accept that the US has a problem with right-wing domestic terrorism.

[The guy from the Vale]

So, he really took the right-wing noise machine's vitriol about white America being under siege serious.

Right-wing noise machine doesn't care though. Right-wing noise machine doesn't give a shit.

[awesome possum]

So, he really took the right-wing noise machine's vitriol about white America being under siege serious.

Right-wing noise machine doesn't care though. Right-wing noise machine doesn't give a shit.

Right-wing noise machine somehow tries to make themselves the true victims of this, as 9 people may have died but it was really their religion under attack.

[Summah]

What are Confederate values? I mean besides slavery.

[Galactus]

There really aren't any?

I mean, that was kind of their point. "We're going to rebel 'cuz slavery."

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

There really aren't any?

I mean, that was kind of their point. "We're going to rebel 'cuz slavery."

Not sure that's fair. It was a different lifestyle from the North with it's own culture and traditions. It certainly doesn't help that one of those traditions was slavery, but that doesn't emcompass the entire culture.

[Hayyoth]

Not sure that's fair. It was a different lifestyle from the North with it's own culture and traditions. It certainly doesn't help that one of those traditions was slavery, but that doesn't emcompass the entire culture.

I think that's a good point. Almost all pre industrial societies practiced slavery in one form or another. For example the Arab world had an active and thriving slave trade were tens of millions of Sub Saharan black Africans were transported across North Africa and the Middle East and treated in the most barbarous and cruel ways imaginable. This was a trade that carried on for a millennium and only really stopped in the mid 20th century. Funnily I don't hear many American liberals dismissing the entire Arab/Islamic culture as worthless coz slavery.

[Crazydog7]

Get outta here with that bullshit.

[Hayyoth]

Get outta here with that bullshit.

It's not a justification for slavery, however be careful when throwing around the claim that slavery=Nazism (which has definitely been a thing on these threads).

[Shryke]

Not sure that's fair. It was a different lifestyle from the North with it's own culture and traditions. It certainly doesn't help that one of those traditions was slavery, but that doesn't emcompass the entire culture.

Right, but those are the cultures and traditions of the American South. The Confederacy was just all about slavery. That's literally the only reason it existed.

[The Fallen]

Yeah. I would buy the "southern culture" argument if the flag had been around before the secession and before the confederacy. But it wasn't. Meaning that all of the confederacy flags were created expressly to represent the secession and slavery.

I would imagine that the south could find lots of other items that could represent southern culture. Choosing a confederate flag says a lot about the sentiment being expressed; a sadness, maybe even a longing, for the good ole days.

And for the life of me I can't understand why the south is so proud of the confederacy. They lost. And, you know, slavery. It was a shameful period, along with Jim Crow, in the history of the south. As a matter of fact, the entire history of the south, until recently, has been shameful. Yet southerners point to it with pride.

[Wise Fool]

Right, but those are the cultures and traditions of the American South. The Confederacy was just all about slavery. That's literally the only reason it existed.

Yep. Of course, the neo-confederate apologist has to go ahead and use the "culture" euphemism and apply it to a particular failed state so he can then compare (and try to gain legitimacy by that association alone) it to actual cultures. People who detest the Confederacy are just, like, racist against the South, man!

[The Marquis de Leech]

And for the life of me I can't understand why the south is so proud of the confederacy. They lost. And, you know, slavery. It was a shameful period, along with Jim Crow, in the history of the south. As a matter of fact, the entire history of the south, until recently, has been shameful. Yet southerners point to it with pride.

No-one likes to think their great-great-grandfather fought for slavery. So you get (at best) the line that they were just fighting for their state, or else you get rationalisations that Lincoln was a tyrant, et cetera.

[The Marquis de Leech]

As a thought experiment:

Imagine the US and USSR pull troops out of Germany because it's too expensive and people are sick of it. Germany ends up being ruled from the early 1950s until the 2060s by a right-wing nationalist regime that doesn't go round invading others any more, but which is a one-party regime, and which does explicitly treat Jews as second-class citizens. The swastika is explicitly featured on German state flags, and Germany sends representatives to the European Parliament who bloc-vote against any attempt to bring them to heal. In the 2050s, the EU finally forces Germany to allow Jews civil rights. Germany takes this very badly, and for the rest of the century, you see right-wing German politicians going on about evil attacks on their heritage.

Sounds pretty disturbing, doesn't it?

[The guy from the Vale]

Yeah, why not use cobbler with ice cream a the symbol for the south? It's delicious and not associated with the confederacy. Or deep pit barbecue, same principle.

@RBPL: Yep, it's extremely disturbing. And it's exactly what the Confederacy worship in the south looks like to me.

Granted, the German justice and security apparatus was rather blind to right-wing abuses, both due to the incomplete reckoning with their history during the 1930s and 1940s, and because of the focus on fighting the Cold War directly afterwards. This tendency continues until today (see: Oktoberfest terror attack, NSU). But at the same time, no prominent German could afford being associated with Nazism lest he be deemed a social outcast, and schools didn't attempt to glorify the period the way the Confederacy seems to be glorified in schools in the southern US.

[Hayyoth]

As a thought experiment:

Imagine the US and USSR pull troops out of Germany because it's too expensive and people are sick of it. Germany ends up being ruled from the early 1950s until the 2060s by a right-wing nationalist regime that doesn't go round invading others any more, but which is a one-party regime, and which does explicitly treat Jews as second-class citizens. The swastika is explicitly featured on German state flags, and Germany sends representatives to the European Parliament who bloc-vote against any attempt to bring them to heal. In the 2050s, the EU finally forces Germany to allow Jews civil rights. Germany takes this very badly, and for the rest of the century, you see right-wing German politicians going on about evil attacks on their heritage.

Sounds pretty disturbing, doesn't it?

Imagine if the Allies had conquered Germany and instead of establishing a working democracy and rebuilding the place after devastating war had instead suspended basic constitutional rights, committed human rights abuses and generally treated the subjugated population to a bout of mass collective punishment. Now imagine what effect that would have had on a defeated region's politics? Sounds pretty disturbing doesn't it?

[Relic]

I think that's a good point. Almost all pre industrial societies practiced slavery in one form or another. For example the Arab world had an active and thriving slave trade were tens of millions of Sub Saharan black Africans were transported across North Africa and the Middle East and treated in the most barbarous and cruel ways imaginable. This was a trade that carried on for a millennium and only really stopped in the mid 20th century. Funnily I don't hear many American liberals dismissing the entire Arab/Islamic culture as worthless coz slavery.

wtf? i mean.... congratulations. this is the dumbest thing ive read all day.