Thursday, August 17, 2017

Trump and the haters

"Yesterday, the President of the United States spoke from his heart and defended the persons (neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, and White Supremacists) who marched on Saturday, August 12 in Charlottesville, VA. As a result of this protest march, a young woman and two police officers lost their lives. Yet, the President defended the individuals who wore the robes and carried the placards, and placed blame on the “other” side. In the past, the President has claimed “not to know” what the KKK and White Supremacists were all about, yet his very own father was a member of the KKK and he was arrested in 1927 in Jamaica, Queens, New York, during a “free-for-all-battle” involving 100 police officers and 1,000 Klansmen dressed in KKK robes.

Former KKK leader David Duke, an American white nationalist, politician, anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, Holocaust denier, convicted felon, and former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, praised the president for his remarks today. In regards to the removal of statues of Confederate military men, the President stated, “George Washington was a slave owner... Are we gonna take down statues to George Washington?

How about Thomas Jefferson?" Yes, both these men owned slaves, and that is something that speaks to their honor, or lack thereof. Yet, in spite of owning slaves, they were the Founding Fathers of our country. But the men who fought as Confederate soldiers were fighting against the very country we live in today. They were traitors in the simplest sense of the word. To honor their memory is to hold their actions as worthwhile, as memorable, as honorable. Which, sadly, they were not.

The Civil War was fought by brother against brother, father against son, and it literally tore families apart. This war was fought primarily over the idea of slavery, whether it was legal for a (wealthy) white man to own and hold a black man/woman/child against his/her will.

In the South a slave was not considered to be a human being but was simply property, just as cattle, mules, or machinery was considered property.

The white men who owned slaves in the 1800’s were the richest landowners, the most powerful men in the South, yet they constituted a tiny minority of the population.

The vast majority of Southerners were poor, they owned no land, and they existed in a subsistence level barely above those of slaves. In the South the Civil War needed bodies for the fighting, and it was essential that all able-bodied men would fight for the romantic ideals that the rich and powerful exemplified.

The myth that the Civil War was about a lifestyle that was “romantic” and “chivalrous” was a bloody joke.

Which brings us to today…where fights now break out and innocent people are injured and even killed over whether or not to remove statues that were erected 100 years after the Civil War to “honor” Confederate generals who lost a war of treason. How did we get to this point in our country? When did it become okay for people (mostly twenty-something well-fed white men) who dress up in Nazi costumes and KKK sheets to march through our streets, chanting Nazi slogans and spewing hate towards others?

Which brings us to the man who is now living in the White House (when he’s not out playing golf) and who gives the people who are wearing the Nazi symbols and the KKK sheets his full support and who is putting blame on those who are resisting these invaders and who are suffering the beatings and injuries and even deaths as the “alt-Left” (whatever that means).

The man who is now living in the White House surrounds himself with people who want to move our country back fifty, one hundred years, who want to do away with Civil Rights, with protection for discrimination, with equal pay, with women’s right to their own bodies. He is a frightening menace to our country and the values America has stood for. A World War was fought to protect our democracy with millions of lives being lost in the process, but here we are – fighting the same battles once more.

Can we afford to sit idly by, letting the enemies of our way of life take over, letting our country be turned into 1930’s Germany? I refuse to allow that to happen without a fight…I will stand up, I will speak out, I will let my voice be heard loud and clear. It is incumbent upon us all to stop this horror that is consuming our land."

- Kathy Morgan

Source
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/?hc_ref=ARS46GU5puIf-KaQX2Wna_sY6i7RsPIf0orcU7hxM-BErf3e-2bMuO5adAy_Li-q-_c&fref=nf

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