Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Leader backs haters whose aim is to roll back history
doing what was right. My heart is broken but I am forever proud of her.”
Heather had spoken of her anger over the rally, posting on Facebook: “If you are not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”
James Alex Fields Jr, 20, of Maumee, Ohio, was arrested and charged with murder. Fields’s mother said she thought he was going to a Donald Trump event. Samantha Bloom, who was spoken to by the FBI yesterday, said: “I didn’t know it was white supremacist. I thought it had something to do with Trump. I don’t understand what the rally was about. He did mention alt-right.”
US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said of the racial hatred: “The violence and deaths in Charlottesville strike at
VIRGINIA’S ATTORNEY GENERAL
the heart of American law and justice. When such actions arise from racial bigotry and hatred, they betray our core values and cannot be tolerated.”
The Charlottesville riots were the latest in a series of dramas unfolding across the US over plans to remove statues and other historical markers of the Confederacy. It began with a torchlit rally by white nationalists on Friday at the University of Virginia. The groups NAZIS and White Supremacists marched in Charlottesville and Donald Trump gave a thumbs-up.
He threw one of the loveliest university cities in the world under the bus in his zeal to appease his base. Of course, not all of his base are Nazis, racists and anti-semites but better safe than sorry for Trump. By his use of the term “all sides” to describe the Unite the Right rampage, he gave a licence to hatred.
The South is both complicated and complex. Home of the philosophy of “States Rights”, it is grounded in belief the states of America are sovereign above all and federal government is a tool to enact their will. This clash exploded into the Civil War. At its heart was the question of slavery.
EQUALITY
The South banded into a confederacy, seceded and went to war, much of which was fought on Southern soil. What many in the South call the “Occupation” happened there too.
It is African-americans who have always been the battle site of this states rights vs federal government battle. The Civil War ended. But there is little peace.
Today, much of the Republican Party in the South occupies the ground left by the Democrats after the Civil Rights era. The Republicans are trying to erase voter rights gains, challenging the concept of equality itself.
The continued celebration of the Confederate flag, the statue of General Robert E Lee, are attempts for many white Southern Americans and their allies in other parts of the US to “Make America Great Again”.
The white supremacists and Nazis in Charlottesville are a reminder of a time most have decided the nation will not return to. The President has aligned himself with the forces of those who want to roll back history. He is unfit to hold his high office.