VICE News documentary on white nationalist group involved in Charlottesville; Strong reactions to Trump's both sides to blame remarks on Tuesday
This documentary has given me a superb insight into at least one major white nationalist group leader's - Christopher Cantwell's - views and role in the Charlottesville (Virginia, USA) incidents (warning: the video has some graphic language and graphic images of violence): Charlottesville: Race and Terror – VICE News Tonight on HBO, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P54sP0Nlngg, 22 min. 4 secs, published 14th Aug. 2017, (no. of views on 17th Aug. 2017 - 3,678,662 i.e. over 3.6 million views!).
The strange thing though is now that leader seems to have had a meltdown with reports of the police seeking to arrest him, after the documentary went viral and was seen by many. This article covers that: 'I'm terrified': White nationalist Charlottesville rally co-organizer who said he's disgusted to see Jared Kushner with Ivanka is seen sobbing on YouTube over his possible arrest, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4797774/White-nationalist-sobs-YouTube-possible-arrest.html, 17th Aug. 2017.
And this 'The Young Turks' video puts up clips of his terror boasts from the VICE News documentary followed by his meltdown, and comments on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD4reaHE83Q, 10 min. 33 secs.
Facebook Has Banned White Supremacist Christopher Cantwell, http://time.com/4904122/facebook-christopher-cantwell-ban-charlottesville/.
------
Given below are reactions from USA political leaders to Trump's Tuesday comments about blame on both sides for Charlottesville hatred and violence.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, a Democrat, who would have access to reports from the police and other government agencies of Charlottesville (town) and Virginia (state), said (according to https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/trump-charlottesville-white-nationalists.html), "Neo-Nazis, Klansmen and white supremacists came to Charlottesville heavily armed, spewing hatred and looking for a fight".."One of them murdered a young woman in an act of domestic terrorism, and two of our finest officers were killed in a tragic accident while serving to protect this community. This was not ‘both sides.’"
House Speaker Paul Ryan (Republican-Wisconsin), "We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity.", https://twitter.com/SpeakerRyan/status/897579093184610305.
Senator John McCain (Republican-Arizona), "There's no moral equivalency between racists & Americans standing up to defy hate& bigotry. The President of the United States should say so", https://twitter.com/SenJohnMcCain/status/897624579589451778.
Senator Orrin Hatch (Republican-Utah), '"We should never hesitate to call out hate. Whenever and wherever we see it." -OGH ...', https://twitter.com/senorrinhatch/status/897585892172247041.
Senator Marco Rubio (Republican-Florida) sent out a 6 part tweet:
The organizers of events which inspired & led to #charlottesvilleterroristattack are 100% to blame for a number of reasons. 1/6, https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/897575723443027968.
They are adherents of an evil ideology which argues certain people are inferior because of race, ethnicity or nation of origin. 2/6
When entire movement built on anger & hatred towards people different than you,it justifies & ultimately leads to violence against them 3/6
These groups today use SAME symbols & same arguments of #Nazi & #KKK, groups responsible for some of worst crimes against humanity ever 4/6
Mr. President,you can't allow #WhiteSupremacists to share only part of blame.They support idea which cost nation & world so much pain 5/6
The #WhiteSupremacy groups will see being assigned only 50% of blame as a win.We can not allow this old evil to be resurrected 6/6
--- end 6 part tweet of Sen. Rubio ---
Democratic senators and House minority leader had stronger words. I decided not to include those stronger words in this post.
----
Trump's Tuesday comments (blame on both sides) led to a lot of CEOs (& at least one chairman) and labor leaders on his business panels quitting or getting pretty upset, which seems to have led to the panels being disbanded. A small extract from http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-trump-ceos-council-20170816-story.html, "By Wednesday, so many executives had resigned from Trump’s economic advisory and manufacturing councils, including the heads of General Electric Co., Intel Corp. and Campbell Soup Co., that the president announced on Twitter that he was disbanding the panels."
The statements of many of these CEOs (& chairman) and labour leaders are given here: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-trump-ceo-defections-20170816-htmlstory.html.
Kenneth Frazier, CEO of Merck (and an African-American), resigned before Trump's scripted Monday statement. Part of Frazier's statement was, "Our country's strength stems from its diversity and the contributions made by men and women of different faiths, races, sexual orientations and political beliefs. America's leaders must honour our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal." Source: https://twitter.com/Merck/status/897065338566791169.
Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel, resigned on Monday. Part of his statement was, "I have already made clear my abhorrence at the recent hate-spawned violence in Charlottesville, and earlier today I called on all leaders to condemn the white supremacists and their ilk who marched and committed violence. I resigned because I want to make progress, while many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them. We should honor – not attack – those who have stood up for equality and other cherished American values. I hope this will change, and I remain willing to serve when it does." Source: http://blogs.intel.com/policy/2017/08/14/intel-ceo-leaves-manufacturing-council/.
Richard Trumka, president of AFL-CIO (and Thea Lee, deputy chief of staff) resigned on Tuesday. Part of Trumka's statement was, "We cannot sit on a council for a President who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism. President Trump's remarks today repudiate his forced remarks yesterday about the KKK and neo-Nazis. We must resign on behalf of America's working people, who reject all notions of legitimacy of these bigoted groups." Source: https://twitter.com/RichardTrumka/status/897575417430896645.
Denise Morrison, CEO of Campbell Soup resigned on Wednesday, the day the panels were disbanded. The above latimes.com article reports her statement as, "Racism and murder are unequivocally reprehensible and are not morally equivalent to anything else that happened in Charlottesville. I believe the President should have been — and still needs to be unambiguous on that point.
Following yesterday’s remarks from the President, I cannot remain on the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. I will continue to support all efforts to spur economic growth and advocate for the values that have always made America great."
Jeff Immelt, Chairman of General Electric, left on Wednesday. Part of his statement was, "The President's statements yesterday were deeply troubling. There would be no GE without people of all races, religions, genders, and sexual orientations. GE has no tolerance for hate, bigotry, racism, and the white supremacist extremism that the country witnessed in Charlottesville last weekend." Source: https://twitter.com/BostonomiX/status/897880778918567936.
Alex Gorsky, CEO of Johnson & Johnson: Part of his statement, as per above latimes.com article, after the panels were disbanded, was, "The President’s most recent statements equating those who are motivated by race-based hate with those who stand up against hatred is unacceptable and has changed our decision to participate in the White House Manufacturing Advisory Council."
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase mentioned in a statement on Wednesday that members of the business advisory panel had agreed to disband, according to the above latimes.com article. The article quotes this part of Dimon's statement, "I strongly disagree with President Trump's reaction to the events that took place in Charlottesville over the past several days. Racism, intolerance and violence are always wrong. The equal treatment of all people is one of our nation’s bedrock principles. There is no room for equivocation here: the evil on display by these perpetrators of hate should be condemned and has no place in a country that draws strength from our diversity and humanity.
As a company and for all business in general, it is critical that we help develop rational, intelligent policies to help expand opportunities for all of our citizens. I know that times are tough for many. The lack of economic growth and opportunity has led to deep and understandable frustration among so many Americans. But fanning divisiveness is not the answer. Constructive economic and regulatory policies are not enough and will not matter if we do not address the divisions in our country. It is a leader’s role, in business or government, to bring people together, not tear them apart."
Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, is reported by the above latimes.com article to have said in a statement (in part), "The events that occurred in Charlottesville, as I said on Monday, are nothing short of domestic terrorism. Such racism and bigotry must not just be condemned, but must be condemned unequivocally. The diversity of America works because leaders from all walks of life have always been willing to step forward and reject intolerance without equivocation."
----------------------------
Interestingly, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg put out a post about the hatred on display at Charlottesville but did not refer to Trump's comments. An extract from his post, https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10103969849282011, dated (Indian Time) 17th August 2017:
There is no place for hate in our community. That's why we've always taken down any post that promotes or celebrates hate crimes or acts of terrorism -- including what happened in Charlottesville. With the potential for more rallies, we're watching the situation closely and will take down threats of physical harm. We won't always be perfect, but you have my commitment that we'll keep working to make Facebook a place where everyone can feel safe.
The last few days have been hard to process. I know a lot of us have been asking where this hate comes from. As a Jew, it's something I've wondered much of my life. It's a disgrace that we still need to say that neo-Nazis and white supremacists are wrong -- as if this is somehow not obvious. My thoughts are with the victims of hate around the world, and everyone who has the courage to stand up to it every day.
There may always be some evil in the world, and maybe we can't do anything about that. But there's too much polarization in our culture, and we can do something about that. There's not enough balance, nuance, and depth in our public discourse, and I believe we can do something about that. We need to bring people closer together, and I know we can make progress at that.
--- end extract ---
Here's an interesting article: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer, https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/, dated 16th Aug. 2017.
A few short extracts from the article: "Earlier today, Cloudflare terminated the account of the Daily Stormer. We've stopped proxying their traffic and stopped answering DNS requests for their sites. We've taken measures to ensure that they cannot sign up for Cloudflare's services ever again. Our terms of service reserve the right for us to terminate users of our network at our sole discretion. The tipping point for us making this decision was that the team behind Daily Stormer made the claim that we were secretly supporters of their ideology. Our team has been thorough and have had thoughtful discussions for years about what the right policy was on censoring. Like a lot of people, we’ve felt angry at these hateful people for a long time but we have followed the law and remained content neutral as a network. We could not remain neutral after these claims of secret support by Cloudflare."
[I thank latimes.com and various USA political and business leaders, and cloudflare.com, and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above small extract/statements from their website/social media accounts on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever. Please note that this post deals with public safety and well being.]
The strange thing though is now that leader seems to have had a meltdown with reports of the police seeking to arrest him, after the documentary went viral and was seen by many. This article covers that: 'I'm terrified': White nationalist Charlottesville rally co-organizer who said he's disgusted to see Jared Kushner with Ivanka is seen sobbing on YouTube over his possible arrest, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4797774/White-nationalist-sobs-YouTube-possible-arrest.html, 17th Aug. 2017.
And this 'The Young Turks' video puts up clips of his terror boasts from the VICE News documentary followed by his meltdown, and comments on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD4reaHE83Q, 10 min. 33 secs.
Facebook Has Banned White Supremacist Christopher Cantwell, http://time.com/4904122/facebook-christopher-cantwell-ban-charlottesville/.
------
Given below are reactions from USA political leaders to Trump's Tuesday comments about blame on both sides for Charlottesville hatred and violence.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, a Democrat, who would have access to reports from the police and other government agencies of Charlottesville (town) and Virginia (state), said (according to https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/trump-charlottesville-white-nationalists.html), "Neo-Nazis, Klansmen and white supremacists came to Charlottesville heavily armed, spewing hatred and looking for a fight".."One of them murdered a young woman in an act of domestic terrorism, and two of our finest officers were killed in a tragic accident while serving to protect this community. This was not ‘both sides.’"
House Speaker Paul Ryan (Republican-Wisconsin), "We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity.", https://twitter.com/SpeakerRyan/status/897579093184610305.
Senator John McCain (Republican-Arizona), "There's no moral equivalency between racists & Americans standing up to defy hate& bigotry. The President of the United States should say so", https://twitter.com/SenJohnMcCain/status/897624579589451778.
Senator Orrin Hatch (Republican-Utah), '"We should never hesitate to call out hate. Whenever and wherever we see it." -OGH ...', https://twitter.com/senorrinhatch/status/897585892172247041.
Senator Marco Rubio (Republican-Florida) sent out a 6 part tweet:
The organizers of events which inspired & led to #charlottesvilleterroristattack are 100% to blame for a number of reasons. 1/6, https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/897575723443027968.
They are adherents of an evil ideology which argues certain people are inferior because of race, ethnicity or nation of origin. 2/6
When entire movement built on anger & hatred towards people different than you,it justifies & ultimately leads to violence against them 3/6
These groups today use SAME symbols & same arguments of #Nazi & #KKK, groups responsible for some of worst crimes against humanity ever 4/6
Mr. President,you can't allow #WhiteSupremacists to share only part of blame.They support idea which cost nation & world so much pain 5/6
The #WhiteSupremacy groups will see being assigned only 50% of blame as a win.We can not allow this old evil to be resurrected 6/6
--- end 6 part tweet of Sen. Rubio ---
Democratic senators and House minority leader had stronger words. I decided not to include those stronger words in this post.
----
Trump's Tuesday comments (blame on both sides) led to a lot of CEOs (& at least one chairman) and labor leaders on his business panels quitting or getting pretty upset, which seems to have led to the panels being disbanded. A small extract from http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-trump-ceos-council-20170816-story.html, "By Wednesday, so many executives had resigned from Trump’s economic advisory and manufacturing councils, including the heads of General Electric Co., Intel Corp. and Campbell Soup Co., that the president announced on Twitter that he was disbanding the panels."
The statements of many of these CEOs (& chairman) and labour leaders are given here: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-trump-ceo-defections-20170816-htmlstory.html.
Kenneth Frazier, CEO of Merck (and an African-American), resigned before Trump's scripted Monday statement. Part of Frazier's statement was, "Our country's strength stems from its diversity and the contributions made by men and women of different faiths, races, sexual orientations and political beliefs. America's leaders must honour our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal." Source: https://twitter.com/Merck/status/897065338566791169.
Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel, resigned on Monday. Part of his statement was, "I have already made clear my abhorrence at the recent hate-spawned violence in Charlottesville, and earlier today I called on all leaders to condemn the white supremacists and their ilk who marched and committed violence. I resigned because I want to make progress, while many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them. We should honor – not attack – those who have stood up for equality and other cherished American values. I hope this will change, and I remain willing to serve when it does." Source: http://blogs.intel.com/policy/2017/08/14/intel-ceo-leaves-manufacturing-council/.
Richard Trumka, president of AFL-CIO (and Thea Lee, deputy chief of staff) resigned on Tuesday. Part of Trumka's statement was, "We cannot sit on a council for a President who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism. President Trump's remarks today repudiate his forced remarks yesterday about the KKK and neo-Nazis. We must resign on behalf of America's working people, who reject all notions of legitimacy of these bigoted groups." Source: https://twitter.com/RichardTrumka/status/897575417430896645.
Denise Morrison, CEO of Campbell Soup resigned on Wednesday, the day the panels were disbanded. The above latimes.com article reports her statement as, "Racism and murder are unequivocally reprehensible and are not morally equivalent to anything else that happened in Charlottesville. I believe the President should have been — and still needs to be unambiguous on that point.
Following yesterday’s remarks from the President, I cannot remain on the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. I will continue to support all efforts to spur economic growth and advocate for the values that have always made America great."
Jeff Immelt, Chairman of General Electric, left on Wednesday. Part of his statement was, "The President's statements yesterday were deeply troubling. There would be no GE without people of all races, religions, genders, and sexual orientations. GE has no tolerance for hate, bigotry, racism, and the white supremacist extremism that the country witnessed in Charlottesville last weekend." Source: https://twitter.com/BostonomiX/status/897880778918567936.
Alex Gorsky, CEO of Johnson & Johnson: Part of his statement, as per above latimes.com article, after the panels were disbanded, was, "The President’s most recent statements equating those who are motivated by race-based hate with those who stand up against hatred is unacceptable and has changed our decision to participate in the White House Manufacturing Advisory Council."
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase mentioned in a statement on Wednesday that members of the business advisory panel had agreed to disband, according to the above latimes.com article. The article quotes this part of Dimon's statement, "I strongly disagree with President Trump's reaction to the events that took place in Charlottesville over the past several days. Racism, intolerance and violence are always wrong. The equal treatment of all people is one of our nation’s bedrock principles. There is no room for equivocation here: the evil on display by these perpetrators of hate should be condemned and has no place in a country that draws strength from our diversity and humanity.
As a company and for all business in general, it is critical that we help develop rational, intelligent policies to help expand opportunities for all of our citizens. I know that times are tough for many. The lack of economic growth and opportunity has led to deep and understandable frustration among so many Americans. But fanning divisiveness is not the answer. Constructive economic and regulatory policies are not enough and will not matter if we do not address the divisions in our country. It is a leader’s role, in business or government, to bring people together, not tear them apart."
Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, is reported by the above latimes.com article to have said in a statement (in part), "The events that occurred in Charlottesville, as I said on Monday, are nothing short of domestic terrorism. Such racism and bigotry must not just be condemned, but must be condemned unequivocally. The diversity of America works because leaders from all walks of life have always been willing to step forward and reject intolerance without equivocation."
----------------------------
Interestingly, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg put out a post about the hatred on display at Charlottesville but did not refer to Trump's comments. An extract from his post, https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10103969849282011, dated (Indian Time) 17th August 2017:
There is no place for hate in our community. That's why we've always taken down any post that promotes or celebrates hate crimes or acts of terrorism -- including what happened in Charlottesville. With the potential for more rallies, we're watching the situation closely and will take down threats of physical harm. We won't always be perfect, but you have my commitment that we'll keep working to make Facebook a place where everyone can feel safe.
The last few days have been hard to process. I know a lot of us have been asking where this hate comes from. As a Jew, it's something I've wondered much of my life. It's a disgrace that we still need to say that neo-Nazis and white supremacists are wrong -- as if this is somehow not obvious. My thoughts are with the victims of hate around the world, and everyone who has the courage to stand up to it every day.
There may always be some evil in the world, and maybe we can't do anything about that. But there's too much polarization in our culture, and we can do something about that. There's not enough balance, nuance, and depth in our public discourse, and I believe we can do something about that. We need to bring people closer together, and I know we can make progress at that.
--- end extract ---
Here's an interesting article: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer, https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/, dated 16th Aug. 2017.
A few short extracts from the article: "Earlier today, Cloudflare terminated the account of the Daily Stormer. We've stopped proxying their traffic and stopped answering DNS requests for their sites. We've taken measures to ensure that they cannot sign up for Cloudflare's services ever again. Our terms of service reserve the right for us to terminate users of our network at our sole discretion. The tipping point for us making this decision was that the team behind Daily Stormer made the claim that we were secretly supporters of their ideology. Our team has been thorough and have had thoughtful discussions for years about what the right policy was on censoring. Like a lot of people, we’ve felt angry at these hateful people for a long time but we have followed the law and remained content neutral as a network. We could not remain neutral after these claims of secret support by Cloudflare."
[I thank latimes.com and various USA political and business leaders, and cloudflare.com, and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above small extract/statements from their website/social media accounts on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever. Please note that this post deals with public safety and well being.]
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