They Hit Bottom And Kept Digging
There was a Trump Parade in New Braunfels, Texas. I spent many happy days of my childhood in New Braunfels tubing the Comal River and taking my own children back to build memories of their own.
New Braunfels has officially become the nastiest place in Texas.
They had a Trump parade that they call The Trump Train. That’s a thing in Texas, these parades. But this one was way beyond simply a thing.
The lead truck in the parade pulled a Black Lives Matter flag off the back bumper through town.
Why this is outrageously offensive is because in June of 1998, three white men in Jasper, Texas, tied the feet of James Byrd, Jr., to the underbelly of their pickup truck and drug him 3 miles on an asphalt road just because he was black. After 3 miles, they hit a culvert and Byrd’s body was brutally dismembered. They dumped the body parts in front of a black church. They were members of the a white supremacist organization.
Somebody in New Braunfels didn’t want black folks to forget. You know, like James Byrd, Jr. is something you could forget.
I believe in free speech and dragging that flag was free speech. But, with free speech comes much responsibility.
This is Trump’s America. These are the people who want to rule. And do not tell me that this was just one person. People stood on the side of the road and cheered. There were at least 100 other cars in the parade and not one of them stopped this or dropped out.
It is not enough to just vote. We have to sweep the board. We have to overwhelm them, shame them, and make it uncomfortable for them to do crap like this.
I will never fully understand what it is to be black in America, but, dammit, I will stand.
Thanks to Martha for the heads up.
The yards of every house that psychopath has lived in since the day he first toddled out the door needs to be searched with ground-penetrating radar (GPR) for missing pets. He’s already fantasizing. Let’s hope he hasn’t escalated to full on homegrown terrorist.
Coming for your guns? You’re right about that, sicko – you’re Exhibit A on the list on those who should lose the right to carry, purchase or be in the presence of a weapon. That includes your truck, moron.
1Thank you. We need to win by such numbers that these bigoted loyalists to the Bigot-in-Chief have no choice but to crawl back under their rocks and stay there.
2This morning in the paper it was noted that about 1/3 of Texans own guns; 17% of those guns were purchased in the last ninety days and surprisingly, most purchasers were Biden supporters. Trump started a small ember and it may turn into another civil war if folks don’t come to their senses!
3My daughter lives near the Buc-ees where these immature, drunk, yelling, honking a**holes congregate. They drive around disturbing everyone who lives nearby. They are mostly young & driving big black pickup trucks. BUT — there really aren’t that many of them. My guess is less than 200? Hell – I went to a march with 50,000 women who didn’t make this much noise! And had a whole lot more brains!
4My daughter said she is going to stand outside her apartment complex this Thursday with a sign that reads “Honk if you are gay.” She figures she will have them so confused they won’t know what to do.
5I am seriously considering carrying a sack of caltrops around with me in case I run across a convoy of these idiots.
6sandini @5 sending them to their home state, confusion, is good. But not at the expense of reminding the covidiots that with all their focus on black bashing they’ve neglected the gay bashing portion of their cretinous agenda. “Honk if you’re stupid” is more to the point. Bets on whether they’ll be more confused by “stupid” or the proper use of a contraction?
7I think of Texas as a curate’s egg :
parts of it are excellent.
It’s easier to see the excellent parts if you look at the faces and read the campaign sites of the Dem challengers for the Texas House
I tried to amplify JJ’s grassroots work with this post at Balloon Juice:
8https://www.balloon-juice.com/2020/09/08/winning-is-everything-consider-texas/
I supervised my department’s field training officers in 1977 when Jose Campos Torres was beaten by a group of Houston PD officers. With injuries so severe the jail rightfully refused his booking, the officers were ordered to deliver Torres to Ben Taub ER. Instead the officers delivered Torres to Buffalo Bayou where they beat him further then pushed him into the water. His body was found 2 days later on Mothers’ Day.
When word got out about this incident, my FTOs reported in writing egregious comments made by their rookies that could curl straight hair and pale Sylvester Turner’s face. Before the dust settled we terminated the entire class of rookies based on anti-Hispanic, anti-minority, or anti-Torres comments made directly to their FTOs.
One rookie I recall in particular was the grandson of a nightwatchman and the son of a chief in a nearby town, who had served years with distinction in our department before ambition took him down the road to bigger and better departments.
9New Braunfels used to be one of my ‘hometowns’ [have had many, kids in school, etc], going back to when it was just a smaller town [pop. ~20K, now 100K], and native German-speakers were a significant local demographic group [hardly heard any more]. [Y’all try Naegelins Bakery and Granzins BBQ…yummm ]
Now it’s the center of a huge newish built up area of cityfolk [NB, Comal County have been on the national list of ‘fastest growing’ for about twenty years].
The founders of New Braunfels, Fredericksburg, Bulverde, Boerne, and the other Central Texas German settled areas would be disgusted with this current Anglo Neo-Confederacy tRumpisstan crap.
Most were ‘Freethinkers’ who emigrated to Texas, beginning in the 1830-40s, getting away from authoritarian assholes.
They abhorred the Anglo institution of slavery, and when the US Civil War began, most resisted the Confederacy as best they could.
Many of those Civil War era Texas Germans paid a heavy price in lives and property as the Confederates persecuted them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Texan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_German
10BTW, the Texas German dialect word “Stinkkatze” still fits Comrade Donnei the best.
American Texas Literal Standard Literal
English German translation German translation
skunk Stinkkatze stink cat Stinktier stink animal
11My God. I hope a Jasper Byrd haunts that goon every night for the rest of their life.
12Grandma Ada, no question some of Trumpfs followers are itching to carry out his civil war. Fact is they have started.
13A similar big truck gathering happened near Portland yesterday and then headed to the state capital. There they (proud boys) gathered to protect the state capital from violent “antifa” (they must have been there but in their invisible attire). Anyway, they had speakers warning everyone that the violent BLM rioters would be attacking their neighborhoods, and also “religious themed” speeches. After their god talk, they took off into a small group of onlookers wearing BLM stuff, beating some with bats and fists and spraying them with mace. By the way, some carried their usual guns just in case. That’s what Trumpf s law and order will look like in the suburbs.
“A caltrop (also known as caltrap, galtrop, cheval trap, galthrap, galtrap, calthrop, jackrock or crow’s foot) is an area denial weapon made up of two or more sharp nails or spines arranged in such a manner that one of them always points upward from a stable base (for example, a tetrahedron). Historically, caltrops were part of defences that served to slow the advance of troops, especially horses, chariots, and war elephants, and were particularly effective against the soft feet of camels. In modern times, caltrops are effective when used against wheeled vehicles with pneumatic tires.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltrop
The 3rd Marine division has a ‘Caltrop’ in it’s division insignia!
http://www.uniforms-4u.com/p-marine-corps-shoulder-patch-3rd-division-colour-6702.aspx
14Sandino @5: I like the way your daughter’s mind works. Plus, if any of the creeps tries to cat-call or hit on her, she can just act confused and point out that since they’ve self-identified as gay, they have the wrong gender.
Mike: avoid store-bought caltrops, they’re way too easy to trace. Make your own, but also avoid using rifle rounds for them like my uncles taught me. Just use rebar, that way the ATF won’t get involved. [Just kidding. The same way that Trump was just kidding when he asked Kelly, what’s in it for them?]
15A friend of mine was wearing a Hillary hat in a bar there in 2016. When he complained to the owner about verbal and physically-threatening harassment, he was told it would be safer if he left.
I too used to love to go to New Braunfels but the attitude there had gotten repressive so I quit going.
16Looks like the Brownshirts have resurrected themselves with pickup trucks.
I wonder how they would like it if people treated them the same way as they treat BLM???
17Will’s War by Janice Woods Windle is the true story of a German immigrant family in New Braunfels and how they were harrassed in the time around WWi. It’s a well written account and could probably be a template for how other minorities are treated today.
18Also- read Blacklist by Sara Paretsky. (Detective-ish novel). When I read it I kept thinking of Dick Cheney.
Wow! They ae just begging for damnation and when they get it they are gonna whimper and whine! I’m betting on it!
Note to New Braunfels: My late mother had some German heritage on her side of the family. They were the ones who counted Jews among their friends. And just incidentally, just so you really understand, I have a wallet with money in it. I love to travel, but baby you’re way off my list!!!
19It’s folks like these that make me wish I believed in Satan and Hell.
As for Grandma Ada’s news – my spousal unit likes to say that ‘Just as many Democrats as Republicans own guns…we just don’t talk about them.’
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