(from Aug 9): Initiating a war with the US runs counter to Kim's mandate under the Juche System as it won't help perpetuate the dynasty or help preserve DPRK's independence. Since Greater Seoul is effectively a hostage he can threaten for a long time, and I'm sure someone is trying to make sure Trump understands their position.

Losing $1 billion in sales to China is 1/3 of the DPRK's cash, and they were just starting to make money. Nothing Trump said scared anybody, and Kim isn't going to get rid of any nukes, but will pursue other ways to re-open trade with China. If not for China the DPRK would not exist, and they will keep helping them. The role of the Leader in the DPRK is modeled on Stalinism and Maoism, though their brands of classless communism were rejected in Kimilsungism.
Trump could read up on it in the time it takes to shit out one of his steaks, but there's nothing in there about him.

So what actually happened in Charlottesville before and after the riot, never forgetting that a life was lost during the riot.

Apparently groups that have been described as White supremacist have gathered in the city four times in as many months since May 2017 to protest the decision to remove the statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee from one of the city’s parks.

So why the need to organise a counter protest? Why not let them strut around and then go home? Why the need to express your disgust in such a physical manner? Why the need to ensure that you get close enough to provoke a confrontation?

Trump has been criticised for spreading the blame to 'many sides' and not explicitly calling out the White Supremacists as terrorists.

One Evelyn Beatrice Hall once uttered the well know phrase 'I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it' and this has been met with universal approval ever since but in this case apparently not so.

So.. Was Trump right? I don't like many of the things he does but in this case I believe he's getting a bad press and politicians of all hues are jumping on the 'Hammer Trump' bandwagon and he's expressing a minority view that I believe carries weight, but in many respects they're using hammers that he's supplied himself.

You could argue that you should never allow racial bigotry to pass unnoticed but this bigotry is reported to be a minority view in Charlottesville and surely the best response would have been to have ignored such bigotry as a transient and insignificant irritant.

Ah! I hear you say, it's wasn't the statue, it's what it represented and that could not be allowed to stand and that this carries significance in the south of the US.

I would argue his statue is/was nothing more than a lump of metal on a plinthand whether you agree with it or not, Lee was a significant actor in the US civil war. I'm tempted to ask what the difference is between this lump of metal and the many civil war recreations held throughout the US annually, perhaps we should protest these as well. We are simply becoming too politically correct where anything we disagree with has to be put away unless we feel upset. What would have been wrong with simply ignoring a statue that had stood since 1924 and moving on?

There was a reason (although a slightly different one) that Spiro Agnew was forced out of office before Nixon was.

If Trump just kept his thumbs off of his phone and avoided Press conference's the media wouldn't know what to report on.

When I am working I have CNN playing in the background for 12hrs. I can honestly say that besides the UK terror attacks and a few other international events that have happened since January 2017, the news has been pretty much Trump Trump Trump. And it has all been self inflicted either through him tweeting or arguing with reporters.

Yesterday is a good example of that.

This is how I see it, Kim is quite clearly a madman....what we don't need is Trump's stupid schoolboy comments like "fire and fury" and "locked and loaded" to an unstable madman like Kim, added to that those comments are just plain cringeworthy and embarrassing!!

"But one can condemn violence in all forms while still acknowledging that, even before anyone threw a punch in Charlottesville, the Unite the Right rally was led by, and composed of, in large part, neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Trump claimed Tuesday that his initial statement on Charlottesville blamed “all sides” because he had not yet gathered the facts, but it doesn’t require any fact-gathering to condemn white supremacy. It does not matter that, as Trump correctly stated, the white nationalists had a permit. The point is not that the president should infringe the right of white nationalists to assemble and speak freely. It is that a system of free speech which relies on good ideas to triumph over bad ones only functions if political leaders, starting with the president, loudly and clearly denounce the content of hateful speech."

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...remacy/537045/

Just watch the Vice video then see if you think the same
https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/...sts-nazis-vice

OK, let's take this point by point, shall we? Why were they gathering? Why is a statue of Robert E Lee (whom presumably the Trump camp would describe as "Such a loser," but that's beside the point) even there in the first place? It was erected in 1924, some sixty years after the end of the civil war, almost completely as a corollary to - and a symbol of the town's support for - the rise of the second Klan and the increasing oppression of black Americans at that time. It is, was, and always has been a statue in honour of racial prejudice... nothing more, nothing less. Neo-Nazis get upset when sensible people point this out and suggest that such racist homages have no place on public land in the USA.
this is into Martin Niemöller territory again. Doing nothing, standing idly by while disgusting people "strut their stuff," is not enough. They need to be called out, loudly and frequently, for the evil bigots that they are. This needs to be done up close and personal, since if it comes through any other medium it will likely be dismisses as "fake news." This is why the need to organize a counter-protest. Yes, he has. Because he did spread the blame beyond the blameworthy, and he has consistently failed to condemn the neo-Nazi thugs for the hate-filled terrorist bigots that they are. Perhaps that is because he actually agrees with them? Defending free speech has its limits. It is not OK to shout "fire" in a crowded theatre. It is not OK to incite violence or hatred - that is a specific exemption to free speech protections. In this instance, promoting views that encourage others to take up the agenda of anti-Black, anti-Jew, anti-Muslim, etc is not worthy of protection under the First Amendment.

Oh, and Hall's quote was summarizing Voltaire's views on one specific author of one specific work - it was never intended to be a reflection of a general philosophical position. But that's by the by. No. Trump was not right. He was weak, cowardly - craven even - and deserves every brickbat he gets for such an unconscionable lack of judgement.
Of course it's a minority view in Charlottesville. Do you really think the thugs marching down the street on the weekend were all locals? To ignote such bigotry is, in the eyes of the bigots, to give it tacit approval. Again, it must be called out for what it is, again and again and again and again. Yes, this has been covered above. It's not the statue (well, not specifically this statue, anyway) but the racism, oppression and racial prejudice that it represents. It's not about the General that lost the war, it's about suppression of black Americans and a wistful look back at a time when slave ownership was the thing.
So have a statue of him in a museum. Nobody's suggesting that he should not be commemorated - just not memorialized in a way that represents racism and bigotry, as this 1924 statue does.

Everything. Everything would have been wrong with ignoring it, and everything it stands for.

Brilliant, bloody brilliant.

Apart from the shouting "fire" example. There're no specific laws in the US where that's illegal.

There is a thin veneer of civilisation that masquerades as the rule of law and this protects all of us from being persecuted by those who might not like what we think and howling down a protest simply because you don't like what they have to say lifts that veneer to expose the beast beneath. Who will you 'call out' 'up close and personal' tomorrow because they upset you?

Trump was right to state that there was fault on all sides and those who say differently delude themselves.

Statues are nothing more than inert sculptures that reflect life as it was and not as it is today and shouldn't become idols to worship or objects to hate. There is a statue of Cromwell outside Paliament in London but royalists don't parade for its removal, there are more wothwhile things that need our attention.

To me, the issue is not related to the statue. It is that for people to parade in the street bearing burning torches and carrying other Nazi regalia while chanting anti-Semitic slogans is beyond the realm of free speech. It is an incitement to hatred and likely to endanger lives and property. Such activity is, of course, unlawful in Canada. There's no equivalence in the behavior of the protestors.

Please, please, watch the Vice News video, it's chilling

So you didn't bother to watch the video in the link then.

If you had, you'd have heard the justification for driving a speeding car into a crowd of people (the justifier didn't like what these people say) and that the killing of the woman was justified. You'd have seen the guns they went armed with and how they were more than happy to kill a few people of whom they disapprove.

These people are actively promoting mayhem and murder of people they don't like. It's coming from their own mouths. In the video report.
Damn right they upset me.

Sometimes you're funny, sometimes quirky. But today, trivialising murderous intent as saying something disapproved of? Frankly I don't know what to say about you. They have AK47s FFS.

Do yourself a favour. Watch the video and then come back and admit you completely failed to appreciate these thugs are not simply exercising free speech.