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Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Charlottesville

Originally posted at The Western Journal by Dinesh D’Souza.

You know the progressive media's Charlottesville narrative: "Hey, look at those racists in MAGA hats! This proves that, whatever the history of Democratic Party bigotry and racism today is in the Trump column. Bigotry now is on the right."

But this narrative is a lie. First of all, no one has ever conducted a valid, empirical survey of neo-Nazis or Ku Klux Klansmen to prove they voted for Trump. This is why the media needs visual images that seem to confirm an unproven thesis. In the aftermath of the initial Charlottesville, I was struck by a solitary white supremacist in a MAGA hat being interviewed by more than a dozen reporters. This one guy—otherwise culturally and politically impotent—was portrayed as visual proof that white nationalism is a malevolent Trump phenomenon.

In my new book, Death of a Nation, I examined the lives of the leading white nationalists in America today. Virtually without exception, they are on the left. Let’s start with Jason Kessler, organizer of last year’s Charlottesville rally. The Southern Poverty Law Center looked into his background and was astounded to discover that he had been an Obama supporter and active in the left-wing Occupy Wall Street movement.

What could be more interesting than to examine why an Obama supporter could become a white supremacist? Or how an Occupy activist transitioned into a defender of the white cause? Yet the progressive media went dead silent on this one. Only one local Charlottesville newspaper, The Daily Progress, bothered to dig into this, noting that Kessler’s previous tweets, his neighbors and several of his friends “attest that he held strong liberal convictions.”

Laura Kleiner is a Democratic activist who dated Kessler for several months in 2013. According to the article, "She said Kessler was very dedicated to his liberal principles, and that he was a strict vegetarian, abstained from alcohol and drugs, embraced friends of different ethnicities, and was an atheist." Kleiner added of Kessler, "He broke up with me and a lot of it was because I was not liberal enough. I am a very progressive Democrat, but he didn’t like that I’m a Christian."

I mentioned Kessler’s leftist background on social media and he lashed out angrily by releasing a video denouncing me. The video itself is rambling, incoherent and laced with obscenities. The most interesting thing about it is that Kessler attacks me as a rich, brown-skinned guy who only stands up for big business and special interests. In other words, notwithstanding his disavowal of my portrait of him, Kessler sounds just like the left-wing racist I made him out to be.

Keep reading my op-ed.

4 comments:

  1. Maybe the purpose of AA for many is after varying periods of time for various different people it becomes best to largely or even totally leave the fellowship; ie to maybe even permanently take what you want and leave the rest.....

    I plan to build my new life largely on:

    1. I know I am a ****ing ALCOHOLIC.

    2. Count my blessings. Ask: How important is it? First things First. And finally, EASY does it !!

    Paul.

    PS But I do not 100% rule out dropping back to a meeting sometime in the future.

    OK?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have followed your blog on and off for many years.
    Re Charlottesville; you could google Steve Bannon on Australia; or "Cronulla Riots, Australia". Or Robert Bolt on multiculturalism.

    If you are interested in how these matters play out down under.
    By the way, I was never in the military but many in my extended family were.....

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  3. "But stop listening to tapes. Get your own experience. That’s what I say." (you wrote this on https://stepstudy.org/three-views-of-recovery/ just over 8 years ago) and here I stumble across it this morning and is exactly the... confirmation/validation/prompting that has been whispering within my own self.

    I was involved in an extension of Joe Hawk's Santa Monica group in the early '90s. I ended up going back to drinking after following "the work" (as they called it) for 14 years and was still too wretched in too many ways to sustain a life without a numbing substance. Now, 23 years later, I am just now waking up to the absolute necessity of "getting my own experience" rather than overlaying others' interpretations and perceptions on myself in the misguided and passive hope that their success/health/recovery/whatever can become my own. Waking up to the truth that no one and no thing can 'save me' from the necessity of committing to my own path is, I believe, what is called the dark night of the soul. At least, it is proving that way for me.

    I'm reminded of Joseph Campbell and The Hero's Journey. There's 'the call' which, if ignored or refused (refusing to authentically find one's own experience/path) = disaster (my own history up to this point). However, if that 'road less traveled' is finally chosen, well, that's a whole different dimension (I'm guessing...I'm still just at the gate, myself).

    Anyway, I think it's good to know that words spoken in truth, no matter how long ago, matter and have an impact...

    Thanks,
    D-

    ReplyDelete
  4. 14 years, about 9 months sober now, 2.5 years free of A.A., but who's counting?

    Thanks for checkin in y'all!

    ReplyDelete