«No Trump, no KKK, no
Fascist USA!»
Thousands Of
Protestors Show Up To Drown Out Richard Spencer's Hate
19/ 10/ 2017 Huff
Post, Christopher Mathias, 2 P.M. on YAHOO NEWS
GAINESVILLE, Fla. Thousands of people turned up Thursday at the
University of Florida to protest an afternoon speech by a prominent white
supremacist, making their message clear: Richard Spencer, and those like him, are not welcome. Well before Spencer’s speech, set to
start at 2:30 p.m. (EDT) at a place that did not invite him, a mass of
protestors was on hand to greet him.
«Not
in our town, not in our state, we don’t want your Nazi hate!»
«Alt-right
you can’t hide, you support genocide!»
«No
Trump, no KKK, no Fascist USA!»
protestors chanted as they made their way to the Phillips Center for
the Performing Arts, where Spencer was to appear. There were no initial reports
of violence prior to Spencer’s speech. But the Anti-Defamation League warned
that Andrew Angling, a neo-Nazi who runs The Daily Stormer,
encouraged his followers to target Jewish and black religious and cultural institutions in
the area. The intention is to make locals think that “the entire city is taken
over by our guys,” Anglin said in a post, according
to the ADL.
«You can't be silent when nazis come to town»
Mimi, 66 of Gainesville, FL.
In the two months since Spencer was a featured speaker at
the large white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia (which was
marked by violence, including James Alex Fields Jr. allegedly rammed into
counter-protesters with a car, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer), he has been threatening to sue state universities
across the country who refuse to provide him a speaking venue. University
of Florida officials initially denied his request to speak on campus, citing
security concerns, but ultimately relented. For First Amendment reasons, the
university said, Spencer had to be allowed to speak, even if no one invited
him. He paid $10,000 to rent use of the Phillips Center on
campus.
Gainesville Mayor Lauren Poe (D) was among many speaking out against the
white supremacist. «We need to live our
lives as normal and not let this disrupt us, – Poe told HuffPost
Thursday morning. – Because that’s what
terrorists do. They want to disrupt your life, they want to get into your psyche
and make you afraid to live a normal, free life.» When I asked if he considers Spencer
is a terrorist, the mayor said, «Absolutely,
there’s no question.» «He absolutely intends to
create terror in people and that’s his tactic, – Poe said. –There’s no question that he is a terrorist leader and that his
followers look to commit acts of terror to disrupt our community.»
Thursday’s speech was Spencer’s first stop on a planned tour
of college campuses across America. During the past few weeks, state, city, and
college officials have worked to try to ensure that Gainesville did not become
the next Charlottesville. The school spent $500,000 on
security – roughly equal to the yearly tuition for 78 in-state undergraduate
students. A large banner near the designated campus site for people to protest
Spencer listed dozens of forbidden items, including backpacks, shields,
fireworks, clubs, sticks or flagpoles.
On Monday, Florida Gov. Rick Scott declared a state
of emergency for Spencer’s appearance, citing the violence in
Charlottesville. Thursday morning, Gainesville
was teeming with police from across the state. Roads and bus routes were
shut down. A university outpatient clinic and surgerical
center shuttered, postponing medical services to a later date. The school is
officially open, but many classes were cancelled. On Wednesday night, Spencer
talked to HuffPost at a remote location in the
Florida countryside. Standing outside the luxe
ranch-style house where he was staying – for security reasons, he said. –
he drank Angel’s Envy bourbon and puffed on a cigar.
A dozen or so other white nationalists were with him, among
them Identity Evropa leader Eli Mosley, one of the
main organizers of the Charlottesville event, and Evan McLaren, executive
director of the National Policy Institute, which the Southern Poverty Law
Center has designated as a hate group. Spencer serves as the NPI’s president.
Spencer balked when HuffPost asserted he was a Nazi. «I’m not a Nazi, – he said. – How am I Nazi? At no point in my life have I
ever been a Nazi. This is just a slur word.»
Spencer has been seen in multiple videos giving Nazi
salutes. He and his supporters chanted Nazi slogans in Charlottesville. He’s
called for the creation of a «white ethno-state» and the «peaceful ethnic
cleansing of the United States.» Mosley, Spencer’s
friend and ally, has written
about the «struggle for total Aryan Victory» and the «Nazification
of America.» Given all that, Spencer’s
rebranding of organized white supremacism in America
as the “alt-right” would appear nothing more than a superficial rebranding
aimed at mass appeal.
Spencer was unapologetic about the trouble and costs his
Gainesville appearance had caused. The university’s security
tab? That’s the fault of the far-left group Antifa
and other counter-protesters – they’re the violent ones, he said. He will
gauge his Thursday event a success, he said, if «a packed arena» attends his
speech, it gets a «splash in terms of media» and «no one gets hurt.» During a speech in New York City on Thursday,
former President George W. Bush spoke out against people like Spencer. «Bigotry or white supremacy in any form is
blasphemy against the American creed,» – Bush
said.
FASCISM HAS NO RIGHT TO EXSIST
7 billion PEOPLE on Earth and hundreds of millions of
the Great War VICTIMS
are saying together
NO
LUCH
2017