By Donald Jeffries
While our state-controlled media continues to refer to the Jan. 6 incident at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. as an “armed insurrection,” even the Department of Justice is saying something quite different. Of the more than 400 protesters who have been indicted, none of them are being charged with sedition. And yet they’re still collectively called “seditionists.”
The charges against the Donald Trump supporters range from assault to conspiracy to obstruction. The conspiracy charge is proving difficult for prosecutors. Thus far, only 25 have been charged with that, 10 of them said to have ties to the Oath Keepers militia movement. Arizona authorities who arrested Jacob Chansley, the oft-depicted protester wearing the horned “shaman” headdress, initially claimed to have evidence that the “intent of the Capitol rioters was to capture and assassinate elected officials.” No evidence of that has been produced, including the supposed threats to hang Vice President Mike Pence.
Ethan Nordean was initially accused of sending “encrypted information” to the demonized pro-Western civilization group The Proud Boys, but once it was found that his cell phone battery had been dead at the time in question, the judge in his case declared there was a “dearth of evidence,” and refused to jail him. Prosecutors are still targeting Nordean, nevertheless. Former federal prosecutor Michael Ferrara stated that the overreaching and zealotry of prosecutors could “color the way the judge sees the case going forward.”
Despite the persistent references to protesters being armed and congressional representatives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) being in danger for the lives, the most egregious charges of this sort have been against two men who allegedly used bear spray. In contrast, last summer, cities burned all across the country, with real violence and destruction of property prominently featured. The same “free press” that instantly labeled those at the Trump rally as “traitors” and demanded stiff punishment for them, consistently excused the murders, looting, and arson that were a part of almost every major Black Lives Matter protest. Rolling Stone magazine published a BLM apologia titled “9 Historical Triumphs to Make You Rethink Property Destruction.” The article was co-written by an Antifa leader currently facing multiple felony charges for a mob at- tack against two Marines. “Journalists” like Don Lemon compared the violent riots to the Boston Tea Party. No one has compared the Trump rally in Washington, D.C. to the Boston Tea Party. One particularly ironic headline read, “When Americans Don’t Riot, Politicians Feel Unrestrained.” GQ, of all outlets, announced, “Why Violent Protests Work.” Some compared the “unrest” to the Bible and the founding fathers.
Martin Luther King’s 1967 reference to rioting being “the language of the unheard” was taken wildly out of context. In that same speech, King called rioting “socially destructive and self-defeating” and vowed to “continue to condemn riots, and continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not the way.” The black magazine Essence boldly demanded, “Burn It All Down.” The Nation editorialized, “In Defense of Destroying Property.” Teen Vogue columnist Jenn M. Jack- son wrote, “The negative associations of these terms have an impact on how we think about these demonstrations, just as terms like ‘uprising’ and ‘rebellion’ offer ways to think about these protests as good trouble. When marginalized people respond to injustice, it is the duty of those in power to sit down, be quiet, and listen to what they have to say without dictating the terms of whose language is acceptable. Whether that expression comes in the form of peacefulness, anger, rage or violence, it’s all justified.” Time magazine and television talking heads openly inferred that opposition to violent riots and looting was “racist.”
Truly violent and destructive riots were portrayed as “mostly peaceful protests,” and a civil meandering into what is supposed to be the people’s representative body, which featured only a few random acts of much tamer violence and destruction, was mischaracterized as a dangerous “insurrection,” requiring 25,000 military troops in the streets of our nation’s capital.
Despite the propaganda, the facts are that a Trump rally, not a riot, was infiltrated with a handful of government assets, as all large protests have been at least since the 1960s. The vast majority of those even inside the Capitol, many of them elderly, were patriotically waving flags and even stayed within the purple visitor ropes. Video shows they were ushered inside by still unidentified police officers. There were a few broken windows. There were scattered skirmishes with police, who started and inflicted almost all the violence.
What happened on Jan. 6 has been ludicrously turned into another Pearl Harbor, and continues to be invoked as a warning to anyone fed up with the crimes and corruption of our leaders. The principle of “consent of the governed” no longer applies. Criticizing government officials—even alleging vote fraud—is now considered seditious behavior.
