Does anyone else think Trump has a point?

No one in their right mind would think White supremists or Nazi's should be allowed to spout vile racism ,we've seen it before and where it led and we need to get them under control.We cant risk it getting out of control like it did in the 1930's.

I expect we would have to be born and bred there to really understand their views, but I know they feel very strongly about their Southern heritage.

It does depend how much pressure was put on council members to make the decision.
If they understood local sensibilities all that well, then they must have expected a backlash, which is what they got.
There are some truly vile people in the Southern States who hardly need an excuse for violence, but others who are not at all like that but see meddling in their history as an annoyance.
It's just a point of view.

I think that that was the intention with the Charlottesville statue as well mary

Some southern state towns have relocated the statues to theirlocal museums - I think perhaps that's a good idea - you can put it in its historical context then through the curating.

You don't alter history by taking down a statue - what you do is reappraise the respect with which the person commemorated by the statue is held. It's not a USSR move which air brushed people from photographs or de-stalinised over night.

The issue about the Rhodes statue was that a pressure group was trying to get this taken down ( rightly or wrongly). The decision in Charlottesville was taken by the democratically elected council who must understand the local sensibilities. If these nazi thugs don't like a democratic decision then they could stand for election and try and get the decision changed. However, Nazis are not exactly well known for their appreciation of democracy.

bags I am not clear why that has antrhing to do with anything!!!

That fact is true of every indigenous person in the world who came against outside "bugs" for the first time.

Yes, I think that GGM2 and Tegan have made valid points.
Whilst agreeing that some of the nazi type thugs are always wrong, there are probably a lot of people who live in that town that think taking down the statue is trying to alter history.
There was a similar thing in Oxford (UK) when activists tried to force the College to take down a statue of Cecil
Rhodes (Rhodesia) the College declined to do so, it was part of history and a long association with the College.
We can go too far with this sort of thing.

This started off with 'does trump have a point?'

Which point? Yesterday's or today's???

No, I don't think he has a point. I've just watched a documentary about Charlottesville this morning - a young, female reporter followed the alt-right as they prepared for the march - and found it absolutely horrifying. These Nazis - for that's what they are - believe that America should be a totally white country and they talked about ethnic cleansing. At the march they were armed with guns, knives and sub-machine guns They voted for Trump but would prefer a president who didn't give his daughter to a Jew!

As Michelle Obama said, the presidency doesn't 'change who you are, it reveals who you are', and Donald Trump revealed exactly who he is yesterday.

Bluebelle, by far, far the worst killer of indigenous Americans when Europeans arrived, was disease, things like smallpox and measles to which the indigenous people had no natural resistance. I'm not excusing other killings by saying that, just getting the fact out there because a lot of people don't seem to know it.

Their motto is "blood and soil"

Only if you are white are you entitled to this land.

This was similar to the Nazi motto of the Third Reich.

All this violence is hideous and should never be tolerated. Anyone note it normally happens in the Southern Confederate states?

What appalled me in a recent article, written by an ex-policeman, is that in such places, should a black/brown person be assaulted/killed it goes down in the books as NHI. [Guess what that stands for? No Humans Involved!!!]. If that sort of behavior is still acceptable, why not the white supremacists, Neo-Nazis, KKK and their ilk?

Your post was interesting Tegan but my view is that this is not history. Only in 2015 were 9 African Americans burned to death in a church in Charleston by a white supremacist who said his motive was to start a race war. Also after the murder at the weekend a man appeared on TV with Duke and when Duke said make America great again, his side kick said make America white again. If there were a glorification in this country of the evil mill owners and people were marching to bring back children into the mills and take away the hard eon rights of workers, maybe we'd feel differently about any statues to them. Although most of the statues I'm aware of are of those who did a lot of good eg Titus Salt. I know this is not a good analogy but I really do think the issues in the Southern states and the dreadful racism and de facto segregation are beyond our ability ( well at least mine) to fully understand

Facts: the evil and greedy Slave Traders instigated millions of Africans being taken across the Atlantic. But then the English etc invaded the States initially, murdering millions of American Indians. Our ancestors caused so many of the issues that we are dealing with today, all over the world, and there is hatred and hypocrisy everywhere. It is worrying for our kids futures as evil breeds more evil. My mantra is Dionne Warwicks song " what the world needs now is love sweet love, it's the only thing that there's just too little of ". There is good and bad in every single race under the sun and its so tragic that in this day and age there is still a lack of acceptance and progression.

I do wonder about the reasons behind the supremacists actions. Roger E Lee is a huge figure in American history. I know he was on the wrong side, morally. However, I'm currently watching the excellent series about the Vikings on BBC4, and it seems that Dublin was a city at the centre of a huge slave industry when the Vikings were there; also the Roman Empire was founded using slavery (but we don't tell the Italians to destroy statues of Caesar. We look on the Vikings as rapers and pillagers, not as slave traders but they were probably more of the latter than the former. The American Civil War just happened to come at the end of all of this but those who made money out of slavery at that time seem to have taken the blame for the whole of history. Mill workers were little more than slaves but we're not pulling down every statue of everyone who made money out of exploiting them (and probably became famous,influential figures. By the way, I'm just thinking out loud here (computers shot it and am on a rubbish tablet that is difficult to write on or Google stuff). What I'm trying to say is do we not need to draw lines somewhere when it comes to historical events especially when we have learned and moved on from them (which probably means I'm contradicting myself). Probably suffering from computer withdrawal symptoms today....

I don't agree that 'violence is violence'.

There is righteous violence against a regime based on hate... I think this is fully justified.

I was in the US in the 60's and the attitude there then was horrific and an anathema to me. It's returning again and I find it repulsive and scary - and an excuse for violence. I have no faith in Trump quelling the masses at all.

The accounts I have read of people on both "sides" naturally reflect their own point of view - the fascist groups claiming that the anti-fascist groups used violence against them, and vice versa, and it is a fact that there are always people in every protest group who overstep the mark.

Most of the accounts I have read, from protesters and journalists who were present, refer to the fact that the police did very little to pre-empt or stop the violence between the groups.

I agree that on both sides there are no doubt people who go along to these things with the express intention of inciting violence and participating in it. This is, of course, completely wrong. It is also counter-productive because it loses public sympathy and support. I tend to think they don't really care about that because they are just violent individuals who use their membership of a group as a cover for their violent natures. In my view, any person that resorts to violence discredits their cause and should be arrested.

However, I think driving a car into a crowd of protesters is in a completely different league. If you have the protection of a car and so have the means to protect yourself by driving away but instead drive it into a crowd of protesters, you know you will kill or seriously injure some of them. In this scenario the man did this because he hated them for what they were and/or what they believed in. That is surely a terrorist attack. Had the same action been carried out by a black member of a left wing group, I wonder if Trump would have been more forthcoming in his condemnation of the ideology and behaviour of the group of which this young man was a member.

If you're not happy, go.

If you feel as though you stick out like a sore thumb then move to somewhere where you fit in.

To take up violence to get your way across is not right, but just look at the examples.

Sadly might is always right.

There is a difference between attempts to change or rewrite history and deciding not to commemorate those who oppressed a whole group of people in public places through a statue.

The taking down of statues is a legal act - the city council approved it in April ( although an appeal is pending) and several other councils have removed, relocated or are planning to remove statues. I really do think it is difficult for us in the UK to even begin to imagine what it is like being an African American in so many southern states and how they feel about the Confederacy and those connected with it.

Anyone see the video on Twitter of these thugs beating up a young black man?

O.M.G.