quote:

In the days before white nationalists overtook her campus, Teresa A. Sullivan, the university’s president, conjured up an image far quainter than what the world would see. The university, she told board members, was prepared for the possibility that demonstrators from Unite the Right might come to grounds, but perhaps only as harmless tourists.

"Of course we anticipate that some of them will be interested merely in seeing Mr. Jefferson’s architecture and Lawn," Ms. Sullivan wrote in an email on August 9, two days before the Friday night march.

quote:

In the tense days that followed the demonstration, Virginia’s president criticized student activists for what she described as their failure to pass along concerns about the white supremacists’ march.

"Nobody elevated it to us," Ms. Sullivan said in a videotaped exchange with a student. "Don’t expect us to be reading the alt-right websites. We don’t do that. Now you guys have responsibility here too. Tell us what you know."

But records and interviews show that students and faculty members did just that, even as they feared being dismissed as social-justice crusaders crying wolf.

quote:

Behind the scenes, the university police were in contact with Unite the Right’s designated "security guy," who is identified in emails as "Eli." This appears to reference Eli Mosley, an Army veteran who would later identify himself to reporters as the "command soldier major of the ‘alt-right,’" executing the Lawn march "as a military operation.’"

True to Mr. Mosley’s description, the group used drones to surveil the area before taking the Rotunda.

The following day, according to a report in Vice, Mr. Mosley would encourage armed men to return to the Robert E. Lee statue, off campus in Emancipation Park, after they had been ordered to disperse. "I need shooters," he would say. "We’re gonna send 200 people with long rifles back to that statue."

The university police, who had relied on Mr. Mosley as a point of contact within the group, came to question his reliability as Friday night progressed. He would tell the officers that the crowd was not as large as they had hoped and that the group had no intention of marching through the very heart of the campus. He also promised that they would pick up their trash.

"He says all is going good," Angela M. Tabler, a patrol lieutenant, wrote to fellow officers at 9:57 p.m.

quote:

But few within the university’s administration shared this optimistic view. Communications during this critical period have the feel of an impending siege, as university officials exchange real-time intelligence from three vantage points.

Ms. Sullivan was stationed at Carr’s Hill, the president’s residence. Allen W. Groves, dean of students and the lone administrator on hand at the Rotunda, provided Ms. Sullivan with eyes on the ground. The president was also in communication with Larry J. Sabato, a professor of politics who had sheltered students in the basement of a faculty pavilion on the Lawn, where he lives.

"Lots of yelling west of us, but I can’t see anything yet," Ms. Sullivan wrote to Mr. Groves at 9:45 p.m.

Mr. Groves replied, "We can hear it up here, too."

At 9:56 p.m., Ms. Sullivan wrote back, "I think they are headed to south lawn with open flames."

This was not what was supposed to happen. Mr. Mosley had assured officers that the group would march along University Avenue, a route that would take them to the north side of the Rotunda away from the core of campus.

"Wondering what his excuse is for lying," Captain McGee wrote to Lieutenant Tabler.

Mr. Mosley had told the police that the group changed its route to avoid counterprotesters, a claim that Captain McGee found less than credible.

"I have a hard time buying that," he wrote.

The torches were now a higher-order concern, as the group snaked past McIntire Amphitheatre, closing in on the Lawn.

"Amphitheater," Ms. Sullivan wrote to Mr. Groves at 10:01 p.m.

Captain McGee pinged Lieutenant Tabler two minutes later.

"Angela," he wrote, "does the security guy know the concern with the torches around buildings?"

Chief Gibson had the same question.

Marching in formation across the Lawn, the group of about 300 men yelled in unison, "Blood and Soil!" and "Whose Streets? Our Streets."

At 10:07 p.m., they reached the Rotunda. From there, they descended a long set of stairs to the Jefferson statue, surrounding a couple of dozen protesters, who were shouting "No Nazis! No KKK! No Fascist USA!"

The police hung back as tensions escalated. There were no orders to stand down, Mr. de Bruyn, the university spokesman, said. But the officers relied on the same tactics of minimal intrusion that they had used in decades of previous nonviolent protests, a strategy that the internal investigation characterized as "insufficient" to deal with a "large, highly organized, torch-bearing group intent on intimidation."

As the mob closed in on counterprotesters, violence appeared all but inevitable. A torch, wielded like a spear, struck Mr. Groves. His arm bled as he tried to pull students out of the melee, eyewitnesses said.

Two Virginia law-school students, filming the events from a high perch and streaming their footage live on Facebook, described the scene in panicked commentary: "Oh my God," one said. "There are torches going. They are beating up the counterprotesters."

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

https://twitter.com/don_chump/status/933057957415223297

Zeroisanumber posted:

Cops coordinating with Nazis and the administration just taking them at their word. How stupid were these people?

zegermans posted:

cops love are nazis

Zeroisanumber posted:

Cops coordinating with Nazis and the administration just taking them at their word. How stupid were these people?

Office Pig posted:

the fact this ended with car murder and not a mountain of corpses is extraordinary

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

https://twitter.com/don_chump/status/933057957415223297

Zeroisanumber posted:

Those kids in the square are some of the bravest people that I've ever seen.

rudatron posted:

really, the situation here isn't that much different from the that of the average fascist - in a fascist america, do you think any of these chucklefucks, even if they're white dudes, are going to be on top? No, they're going to be slaving away in the prison camps, with a boot on their neck, because labor rights won't exist

more than anything else, fascism glorifies power, the abuse of power, concentration of power, inequality, etc. it then retroactively legitimizes itself, rewrites history, to fit whatever self-serving goal the people in power want. the people without power, are trash, to be exploited, abused or killed, purely at the discretion of those with power. that's its naked foundation.

some terminally online white dude, convinced that white genocide is around the corner, is not and never will be in a position to benefit from that.

so even if some stupid trans person is patently sticking around people who don't give a poo poo about them, it's not really that different from poor/middle class white dudes agitating for a political ideology where you are superfluous, because you're jealous of how manly black dudes are or whatever

but whatever self-cucking brain disease they have, that compels them to make these terrible decision, ultimately doesn't matter. if they're tragic figures, they're tragic figures wielding a knife, trying to shiv minorities. you don't really have that many choices.

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

Emily in that article is on Twitter

https://twitter.com/EmilyGorcenski/status/919583048236240896

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

Emily in that article is on Twitter

https://twitter.com/EmilyGorcenski/status/919583048236240896

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

https://twitter.com/don_chump/status/933057957415223297

Admiral Ray posted:

Wow who could have predicted this

Bullfrog posted:

I hate university administrators almost as much as I hate cops these days.

The students ALWAYS warn them that poo poo has changed, and then when something goes bad, they throw their hands up like "but that's not how it was in the 90s!!!!!"

Azathoth posted:

This strikes me as being on the same level as anti-GLBT pastors and politicians getting caught having sex with a male sex worker or having an affair with another man.

On one side, I understand that outing someone is a wrong, it is no one's right but theirs to tell that to the world, or not tell that to the world, as they see fit.

On the other hand, I believe that it is a greater wrong for that person to have that internal identity and to then do and say what the right does about GLBT people. It is an ongoing wrong as well, one which compounds over time as they continue to spew hate.

It also exposes an ongoing pattern of hypocrisy regarding the anti-GLBT right, which makes them less likely to influence the general public towards their hate, which is good thing.

As such, I would view it as a moral imperative to commit the lesser wrong and out them, rather than let them continue to publicly spread hate and intolerance via continued silence on their private life.

BONGHITZ posted:

the matrix coats were cool ok.

Tias posted:

I strongly disagree. If we're going to destroy our political opponents, let it be by their views and not by outing them as gay or trans, thus reinforcing that being so is wrong and worthy of ostracism.

I'm just saying that I think Styx came out themselves, and so passing it on is not akin to outing them.

Tias posted:

I strongly disagree. If we're going to destroy our political opponents, let it be by their views and not by outing them as gay or trans, thus reinforcing that being so is wrong and worthy of ostracism.

I'm just saying that I think Styx came out themselves, and so passing it on is not akin to outing them.

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

empathy not sympathy. enough empathy to communicate that going down this road will end badly for them. but no sympathy.

https://twitter.com/Hatewatch/status/933127303059722240

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

https://twitter.com/Hatewatch/status/933127303059722240

Zeroisanumber posted:

This that Atomwaffen psycho?

KiteAuraan posted:

Why are even the fighter neo-Nazis always chunky fatass lardos? Can't they cut and actually get a physique other than Power Lifter Who Has Difficulty Moving in A Fight?

Nanomashoes posted:

Nanomashoes posted: