The death of a young woman and serious injuries to others due to a white supremacist, terrorist act in Charlottesville, Va. this afternoon are deeply saddening and disturbing. My heart goes out to all who are suffering because of the death and the injuries.
It is outrageous, but not surprising, that Trump’s mealy-mouthed statement about what happened made no mention of the instigation of violence, or the inherent violence, of the organized racists.
It is surprising, though, that as I checked out CNN, MSNBC and Fox News throughout the afternoon to see their coverage, all of them, including to some extent Fox News, put the blame for the hours of violence today primarily on the white racist groups. They were also critical of Trump’s bs statement.
More than one commentator was apparently moved by the willingness of large numbers of people to risk injury or worse to stand up for the higher values of humankind against those who would drag us backwards into the gutter.
In other words, the racist neo-fascists hurt their cause today, and that is a very good thing.
Not having been there but following what happened on social media beginning last night and then on TV today, it looks as if the primarily nonviolent tactics and overall effort by the defenders of justice and equality were politically effective. This seems to be the case even though there were clearly a small number of people who came prepared to mix it up physically with the neo-fascists, as shown widely and repeatedly on TV. Though sometimes intense, from what I saw this street fighting was limited, not widespread.
It seems to me that there are openings now for the anti-racist movement because of what happened today. Trump should definitely be hammered for his continued racism, sometimes overt, sometimes by silence, as in this case. Politicians of all parties should be pressured to make strong statements condemning the neo-fascist groups. Wherever we are and however we can, we should all keep speaking out and taking action in support of equal rights, justice and democracy for all.
Past writings by Ted Glick and other information can be found at http://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jtglick.
Ted Glick has devoted his life to the progressive social change movement. After a year of student activism as a sophomore at Grinnell College in Iowa, he left college in 1969 to work full time against the Vietnam War. As a Selective Service draft resister, he spent 11 months in prison. In 1973, he co-founded the National Committee to Impeach Nixon and worked as a national coordinator on grassroots street actions around the country, keeping the heat on Nixon until his August 1974 resignation. Since late 2003, Ted has played a national leadership role in the effort to stabilize our climate and for a renewable energy revolution. He was a co-founder in 2004 of the Climate Crisis Coalition and in 2005 coordinated the USA Join the World effort leading up to December actions during the United Nations Climate Change conference in Montreal. In May 2006, he began working with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and was CCAN National Campaign Coordinator until his retirement in October 2015. He is a co-founder (2014) and one of the leaders of the group Beyond Extreme Energy. He is President of the group 350NJ/Rockland, on the steering committee of the DivestNJ Coalition and on the leadership group of the Climate Reality Check network.
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