Nashville, Under Seige!!!!!!
Imagine living in Nashville, Tn. You find yourself living in a city that rivals Atlanta as an important, if a bit more bucolic city of the South. You live where Country Music is king, but has companions in lots of other musical venues, pop, rock and roll and gospel in particular. The world renowned Ryman Auditorium is there along with the Partheon in Cenntenniel Park. The first of these two was the home of country music twice weekly concerts on the radio in the early days, of some of the iconic heroes of the country music business where Minnie Pearl served as a country version of a standup comedian to the joy of thousands. Roy Clark, John Cash and many other world famous singers were on display there weekly.
On the other hand, the Partheon was constructed as a part of the anniversity of the city and has been home to art exhibits and just a celebration of culture. Then there is Music Row, where many of the music studios, not just country, but all sorts of music are recorded. Finally, there is Lower Broadway which is right on the Cumberland River and features a row of clothing stores, a HardRock Cafe and lots of music and entertainment venues. Those venues reach up 3th Avenue which intersects with Lower Broad and has a variety of cusine available.
But what is happening to this renowned town in 2024? Imagine living there and finding it dangerous to go downtown. No, there are not gangs, however there is something worst. Because for the last two weeks, for the second time in 2024, the city is inundated with Nazi’s. This is not me being insulting or practicing a technic that I admit to being fond of called dramatic language to make the point clear.
These menaces on the street are Nazi’s. Ask them if you want to hear them tell you themselves what their answer is….they will say “real live Nazis, and might, of course throw in some profanity laced words to make it clear how serious they are. Those that don’t actually say yes to that are more than likely to tell you in no uncertain terms that they are White Nationalists. They are more than willing to tell any dark skinned, anything but white, person that they are not people that are welcome. They should all go away.
Then there are the even more brutal ones among them that will tell a journalist asking that they believe in rape. White middle class should not, in their opinion, be able to restrict availablity of men being able to become fathers to the women’s choice, which seems to imply that if it takes rape to grow their population that is certainly fine with them.
I have seen pictures of a little girl in terror because her mother or grandmother took her to Lower Broad, and the Nazi’s screaming profanity and racist verbary scared the poor child into a sobbing mess.
And what are the police doing about this? Due to the Amendment, the mayor has taken the stance that free speech applies to everybody even them, and the police will watch the intruders actions, and only when the action gets physical they intervent. And believe it, the police HAVE had to intervent, one of the Nazi’s, maybe more than one were busily beating up a local 20 year old bartender when the police finally arrested the “visitor”.
This has happened in Nashville twice this year. It is happening now and has been going on for two weeks. A friend of mine who still lives in the area shared the picture at the top of this page. That person, along with lots of others are horrified at what is happening in their home. The previous time it happened was in February of this year.
However, there are some very real reasons for this situation in the politics of the State of Tennessee. Nashville is a fairly laid back, and even liberal city. It is surrounded, however, by one of the most red of red states. The state went for trump in 2016, 2020 and will likely go for him in 2024. In addition, the state assembly is at war, no other word comes to mind to discribe the reality, with Nashville. You see, Nashville is 1. too liberal 2. refused to have the Republican convention in the city and 3. has, in the opinon of the state assembly, too many on the city council, which may or may not be true, but Nashville is who made the decision of how they wanted to be governed, isn’t that their right? In addition, 2 of the 3 state representatives that found the outrageously pro-gun stance of the state, at least within the cities of Nashville and Memphis and with 2 young black men being expelled and having to be re-voted in with the third, a middle aged white woman from the Knoxville not being booted…why, maybe because she was White, who knows. (sigh)
We who have been paying attention can see the dots and connect them. Radically conservative, anti-democracy trends in the national leadership, starting with the racist and generally bigoted logic of trump, with the Heritage Foundation and about 5 or 6 of the Supreme Court Justices (two definitely bought and paid for — to use an old southern phrase, by business or monied interests), siding with the anti-immigrant mob has created a dangerous situation. Many of these people WANT a war.
They hate that this country has black and brown people and hate even more that some of us white folks don’t hate enough. We don’t hate Jews enough for some of them, much less Black and Brown folks. And never mind anybody that follows Islam.
The Southern Poverty Leadership has been telling us this for years…and I have to hoot my own horn but I saw it coming when trump came down the escalator and the first thing he said that I was recall was America First followed by “Mexico is sending their worst people…with maybe a few good ones”. That is called popularism, and anytime populism gets its hooks into a society, you can expect massive numbers of being to start having problems just enduring the bump in the dark. It happened in our history with Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears for the Native Americans and in Germany during the 1940s for those of Jewish, Polish and other ethnicities. I have learned from history that POPULARISM is bad for minority folks.
And again, I reflect back to 2015 with trump coming down that escalator…at first targeting Mexicans as THE problem in the United States. I knew then and there, that the LGBTQ community was in line for being the demonized group as well. Just read the first 5 pages of Project 2025 and you will see, my fear is coming true if these people get back into the White House. Beware and alert!!!!!!!!!!!
And for heavans sakes, whether you think Biden is too old or not, think what trump and his allies will do to the nation if we allow him 4 more years to continue his philosophy. These hate groups are just getting started, don’t let them win.
