Antifa in Middletown? Who Knew?

Middletown, Virginia is a very small community at the rural confluence of two interstates in the northeast part of the state.  There is not a great deal there, but it is the home of the Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical site, the location of a battlefield from the War Between the States where a significant battle was indeed fought.

It is a popular site for those folks whose hobby is to reenact battles from that war.  That means that I need to provide the necessary foreword stating that I have never participated in a War reenactment, nor I have I seen one, nor have I been knowingly close to one, despite many decades of living amidst where those things go on.

I trust that those who do that sort of thing enjoy themselves, learn a great deal and regard reenacting as harmless fun.  I certainly do not think anything bad of those who do participate, any more than anyone would think ill of me for singing barbershop music for 25 years of my life.

This past Sunday was to have been an annual reenactment of the Battle of Cedar Creek at the site.  This was advertised for a long time prior, and if I read correctly is indeed done every year and many folks come out to see it.

The reenactment, however, was not going to happen.  It was cancelled, you see, at the last day.  This was not related to weather, or lack of expected attendance, or lack of reenactors on one side or the other.

Nope, this was to be cancelled because of a threat received last Wednesday, and provided to the FBI, that there would be bombings on that afternoon, and it is reported that a pipe bomb was actually found at the site on the day of the scheduled event (a device was found; the FBI ultimately determined it to be safe and no one was hurt).

The FBI is investigating and we do not expect them to provide any further news on the matter, unless something very dramatic is uncovered.

Because law enforcement is not talking, we are speculating based on word from some of the disappointed reenactors as to what they have heard.  Primarily, the word is that the bomb scare was the work of the same types who are trying to get statues of Confederate generals taken down (along with Christopher Columbus and, I suppose, George Washington at some point).

The obvious inference is that the Antifa types are at it again, only this time the threat was not to statues of Confederate generals but, rather, innocent Americans pursuing a harmless hobby -- and those watching them do so.  And that, friends, goes over the line in a big way.

The cancellation of this event was news in the Washington, DC media outlets, at least for a day or so.  It is only now starting to get picked up by predominantly conservative outlets beyond the DC area.  That, in itself, is a bit scary.  We had Americans, actual Americans, threatened by a lunatic fringe which apparently cannot be called a terrorist organization because they don't have enough of an organization to identify any leadership -- textbook anarchy.

Do we think that anyone in Chicago or Houston or Los Angeles knows this happened?  Was it on the national media?  This is a real problem.  The next time Antifa strikes, and someone is killed, will anyone in the media bring up Cedar Creek and say that this was brewing?  Or will it be the case that the lack of publicity for what they did at Cedar Creek will mean that we weren't prepared?

There was one bright spot.  The reenactment actually ended up taking place on Sunday morning, by a set of reenactment hobbyists determined not to let Antifa or anyone else stop them.  The public was kept far from the "battle", and it was reported that the Confederate ranks were quite a bit down from last year's event.

If I actually were a reenactor on the Confederate side, I don't know if I would have donned the gray uniform.  But I'm glad that some did, if only to demonstrate that Americans are not going to put up with crap from a bunch of communist anarchists.  At the end of the event, the soldiers chanted "U-S-A, U-S-A" to let everyone know that 153 years later, we're not going to let enemies within or without stop us.

Will CNN say anything?  Not a poop out of them so far.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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