The fallout from the National Socialists Vs. Socialist Socialists kerfuffle in Virginia continues. One event was a group of people pulled down a 90+ year old statue of a Confederate soldier in Durham, North Carolina. This is one of those “yeah, but on the other hand” sort of things.

Arrests Begin Following Durham Confederate Statue Toppling

On the one hand, monuments to the Confederates are akin to the Germans setting up monuments to their wartime military. The Confederates were losers in every sense of the word… they were fighting for an immoral and fundamentally doomed cause and they were fighting a bigger, richer, more powerful and industrialized neighbor who effectively surrounded them. Even had they won their independence the CSA is unlikely to have long survived as their cultural basis was weak at best and they now had no way to retain states that decided to go their own way. And, of course, they were losers because they *lost.* Waving Confederate flags proudly always struck me as being on the same level as proudly displaying your straight-F report cards, or the arrest record of your idiot grandfather who was a drunkard and an incompetent bootlegger.

On the other hand… tearing down statues that YOU DON’T OWN is necessarily criminal. If you were to do this and get away with it – and if you read the article, there are people DEMANDING that those arrested be given amnesty – then if the statue is replaced by something you *do* approve of, then someone else can come along and tear *that* down.

But here’s the real head-scratcher – the name of the person arrested: Taqiyah Thompson.

Taqiyah?

That’s, ummm… a little strange. I’m not sure if it’s ironic or on the nose to be named after the Islamic principle that it’s ok to lie to non-Muslims for religious purposes (some claim that it’s only ok to do so when they are in immanent danger of bodily harm, but then they also claim that “Jihad” is only about a spiritual struggle within yourself, not blowing yourself and a whole bunch of innocent bystanders to bits).

Also, who is Taqiyah associated with? Why, the Workers World Party, of course! These folks aren’t “Socialist,” they are all about Marxist-Leninist Communism. Of Course they are. How adorable to complain about the evils of the Confederacy while supporting the evils of Communism, a system that enslaved and murdered many more millions than the CSA ever dreamed of.

I’ve heard a lot of hysterical screeching since January that the US today is “a lot like 1930’s Germany.” Yeah, but it’s not. A far closer analogy would be *1920’s* Germany, which saw the rise of Fascism as a response to the Communists, with street battles between national socialists and outright communists. *THAT* seems like about where we are these days. So, congrats, Workers World Party and fellow travelers: like your ancestors of 90 years ago, your idiocy has helped foster an equally idiot fascist response.