August 13, 2018
MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey
Charlottesville – Some Additional Reflections, and the Column, “Charlottesville – One Year Later” Updated
Friends,
I was in
my kitchen late Sunday afternoon (August 12) and, having left Fox News on my television
in another room, I overheard an interview—I could not identify at first who the
lady being interviewed was. She expatiated at some length about the “climate of
racism” that pervades America—she condemned President Trump for failing to
condemn JUST those racists and Nazis
who assembled in Charlottesville last year (no word about Black Lives Matter, the
Communist Workers World Party, the Antifa anti-fascists, and others who
actually instigated the violence). His “moral failing” was to equate those
“white supremacists” with the noble social justice warriors on the other side who
sought, as she said, to hold America “to account for not fulfilling its promise
of equality and racial justice.”
I thought
to myself—not having seen who the speaker was—that Fox must be interviewing
some far Leftist, maybe a Democratic/socialist type. So, I poked my head around
the corner: the interviewee was Kelly Jane Torrance, identified as deputy
managing editor of The Weekly Standard.
That’s right: The Weekly Standard,
that supposedly “conservative” journal, or perhaps, to be more precise,
Neoconservative journal of opinion, that boasts such writers as Steve Hayes (as
editor), Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol, Max Boot, Matthew Continetti, and John
Podhoretz (many of whom show up regularly on Fox).
I suppose
I shouldn’t have been surprised, after all The
Weekly Standard continues to be a haven for Never Trump Neoconservatives
like Boot and others who have even expressed a preference for Hillary Clinton
over the president—Boot and Kristol going so far as denouncing the Republican
Party and hoping for its defeat in the 2018 congressional elections.
The tenor
and style of Torrance’s remarks, her usage of the ideological framework and
expressions of the far Left seemed to confirm again what such authors as Drs.
Paul Gottfried and Jack Kerwick, columnists Patrick Buchanan and Ilana Mercer,
and others have been saying and writing for some time: the deep-seated
ideological base, the fundamental philosophical moorings of Neoconservatism—the
“Big Con” as my friend Jack Kerwick has denominated them—are on and come from
the Trotskyite Left. Their linguistic structure and political praxis have as their
genealogy a Leftist, always-advancing-and-unfolding Progressive view of
history, in which conceptualizations about racism and sexism and white
supremacy are understood as absolutely critical, and which are seen as
dangerous impediments to realizing what they call “the idea of America.” And that
idea is grounded in the assertion that equality and an always-spreading
egalitarianism is fundamental to the “promise of America,” but must,
likewise, be shared, or imposed, on the rest of the world, whether it wishes it
or not.
As I
listened to Torrance and began to watch Fox’s coverage, I wondered: what really
distinguished this “conservative” treatment from how the more forthright
Leftists framed the narrative?
Not much…perhaps
only in degree.
The Washington Post, which has become
like The New York Times and most of
the Mainstream Media (including our fawning local media) a shrill voice for the
far Left and cultural Marxism, headlined its August 11 coverage with a warm
embrace of the “anti-racists and anti-white supremacists” in Charlottesville:
they seemed disappointed that there were no “fascists” to beat up on this year.
So, the complaints they expressed in 2018 were that there were too many police,
too much law enforcement present.
Let me get
this right: last year there were too few police to protect them against the
Nazis and the Klan, but this year there are too many, so they still felt
threatened? Ah, but then I understood, isn’t law enforcement just an extension
of the white supremacist power structure, riddled with racism and bigotry?
I quote
several paragraphs from The Washington
Post story (Terrence McCoy, “Anti-racist protesters and activists march
through the streets of Charlottesville,” August 11, 2018, at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/local/anti-racist-protesters-and-activists-march-through-the-streets-of-charlottesville/2018/08/11/977b949c-9da2-11e8-b60b-1c897f17e185_story.html):
“Confusion
over an extraordinary police presence on the anniversary of a violent and deadly white nationalist rally turned into anger Saturday night as hundreds of
black-clad protesters marched through the streets surrounding the University of
Virginia here, screaming at police and calling for an end to white supremacy. [….]
“Last year they came with torches,” said
a large banner in front of a monument of Thomas Jefferson. “This year they come
with badges.”
"The
mood in the crowd began to shift when, as speakers addressed a large crowd
outside Brooks Hall, dozens of police officers clad in riot gear lined up along
one side of the field. Many of the protesters called the police action a
provocation — another symbol, they said, of the over-policing of America — and
started chanting at the officers, who were holding shields and wearing helmets.
“It’s
really hard to defend our civil society when [police] do this,” said one
protester, Tom Freeman. “They just marched down on us without any provocation.
Nothing. It just fits everything they say about them, and I’m not even an
anti-police person.” [….]
"On
the first anniversary of that rally, which ushered in another painful reckoning
with racism and hatred in America, the police were neither outnumbered nor
ill-prepared. All of Saturday, they were in fact inescapable, blocking roads,
sealing entrances to downtown, more than 1,000 strong, on a day when a white
supremacist event was not planned, but was definitely feared. [….] “I see a
disproportionality,” said Lisa Woolfork, a U-Va. professor and an activist with
the Charlottesville Black Lives Matter. “Unless there is something they’re not
telling us and have some intelligence that the white nationalists will still
march in force, it seems like who they’re gearing up to monitor and observe and
contain and discipline are those of us who want to resist fascism and racism.”
"Fascism
and racism: It was just about all anyone was talking about Saturday. Up and
down the streets of downtown, people discussed what those forces are in
America, and what they are in Charlottesville. [….] And the President of the
University of Virginia, said, for the first time, “I am sorry,” according to the Daily Progress, trying
to atone for the tiki-torch march on the university’s grounds last year, which
led to injuries among counter protesters. [….]
"Nearby
stood a man named Mike, who declined to give his last name, smoking a cigarette
and making his way through a few beers before he started his next shift at
North American Sake Brewery. He watched the dozens of police all around him,
and said he started to feel angry. “It’s too much,” he said. “I’ve been here
all of my life, born and raised, and I have never seen this . . . Being black in America, this doesn’t make me feel safe.”
[….]
"Hours
later, at the University of Virginia, protesters took that sense of discomfort
and made it action, marching along Rugby Road in a long line. Many were members
of Antifa, and they held signs that condemned the university and the police,
along with white supremacists. They chanted and marched as night descended and
police cars whooshed by and a helicopter hovered above.
“It’s
important to show any white nationalists or supremacists that we won’t stand
for this,” said student Ameenah Elam, 21. She said the racist protests last
year were indicative of deeper cultures of discrimination at the university and
in Charlottesville. “This has happened much more than just last year. . . The history [of racism] in Charlottesville goes way deeper than
Aug. 12 of last year.”
[Terrence McCoy covers
poverty, inequality and social justice in urban and rural America. He is the
recipient of numerous awards, including the 2016 George Polk Award for stories that
showed how companies in an obscure industry made millions of dollars from
exploitative deals with the poor and disabled.]
Commenting on this story, and, indeed, on what is occurring in
America regarding race and the near-universal charge of racism, and how it has
become an ideological bludgeon with which to assault what remains of our
Western and European culture, author and columnist Christopher DeGroot (on his Facebook page, August 11, 2018) offered
a description that sums up what should be the reaction of all those who still
hold fast to the traditions and wisdom that informed the Founders and that once
guided this nation:
“After reading this [WASHINGTON POST article] it seems to me
almost metaphysically certain that there would be quotes from a mindless woman
professor (count on her existence like flies in summer) and a whiny black man
who feels "unsafe." In this case, he feels "unsafe" because
of the police presence. For the same reason he feels "angry." He
might then simply hang himself, because life does not owe you a safe existence.
And if, as a matter of course, you resent the very people who risk their lives
to protect you, then surely you would do better to have mercy on your own
wretchedness: as I say, kill yourself. Alas for them, black men have learned to
parrot the hysterical victimization vocabulary of academia's bluestockings, and
the sight is contemptible beyond expression.
“Also, the idea that these protestors
are not themselves racists is nonsense. These are the race hustlers and
resentment-pipers produced by academia. They aim at obtaining power and money
via their whiny, incessant victimization talk. They are a cheat, and nothing
could be more disgusting. I have more respect for criminals and thugs. At least
they have the guts to be what they are.”
I could not say it any better.
But I did go back and revise the MY CORNER column of August 9
(which has also been picked up and published by Reckonin.com),
and I pass it along today:
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