All those celebrating the removal of statues etc. out to be careful what they wish for because from where I'm sitting there are plenty of symbols directly and indirectly related to horrors of the past so at what point is all this going to stop? When enough people get angry enough to make it happen? How many people is enough and how angry do they have to get? How far back are we going to go in expunging any such symbols of discrimination, slavery from our society? Slavery wasn't all white on black either - it went both ways and even within each racial group. Are we going to stop at statues or include paintings for example. Is it going to stop at 'art' symbols or are we going to find angry people start demanding that certain huge German and Japanese companies, for example, which were key to and grew rich on the horrors committed in WWII, for example, be targeted in some way, have their names changed and their history exposed for all to see. I can fully understand why people might get very upset about such things and want to react but this could easily become a very slippery slope.
As regards the make-up of each side of the trouble in the US, I reckon there were degrees of dangerous extremist on both sides and some using the situation just to stir up trouble for reasons best known to themselves. Were there more of one type than the other in this case, well probably yes but to claim they were all as bad as eachother is patent nonsense. Yes there were probably more extreme right wing nutters but let's not pretend that extremists of whatever type aren't just as nasty and dangerous as eachother.
If we're not careful what I can see happening over time is an increasing number of tit for tat demonstrations, attacks etc. which, unless tough action is taken, could escalate into big trouble as one side seeks revenge on the other and the ante is upped...
