JOHN DERBYSHIRE: “The Garland Archipelago”—Jan. 6 Political Prisoners Are Just The Start | Articles

JOHN DERBYSHIRE: “The Garland Archipelago”—Jan. 6 Political Prisoners Are Just The Start

John Derbyshire

11/05/2021

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[Excerpted from the latest Radio Derb, now available exclusively through VDARE.com]

See earlier: “They Want Us In Gulags” (That Includes Trump). Why VDARE.com Is Suing Facebook For Defamation

My phrase of the week: "The Garland Archipelago." I have stolen it from the comment thread to a November 2nd article by Dan Gelernter at American Greatness.

The topic of the article is of course the appalling treatment of the January 6th protesters by the Washington, DC. Department of Corrections.

Watch Tucker Carlson interview Jan. 6 defense lawyer Joseph D. McBride [Tweet him] below:

And "Garland" there is U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, the nastiest piece of work to hold cabinet rank for many a long year.

Gelernter's article is based on a long letter—over two thousand words—by Nathan DeGrave, one of the January 6th protesters now incarcerated in D.C. The letter describes conditions in the D.C. jail. It was published last week by DeGrave's attorney. You can read it at the Conservative Treehouse blog An Alarming Letter From January 6 Protester Nathan DeGrave, From His Jail Cell in Washington DC, by Sundance, October 30, 2021.

Regime-supporting websites like DailyKos have pooh-poohed the claims made in the letter [Marjorie Taylor Greene Retweeted This Domestic Terrorist's Whiny Complaint From Jail Because..., November 3, 2021] and I have no way of knowing what proportion of them are true. Even for a reader sympathetic to the protestors—a reader like me—some of the claims are eyebrow-raising.

For example, Nathan DeGrave writes, quote:

The guards are mostly liberal migrants from Africa who have been conditioned to hate us, and hate America.

I don't have the slightest problem believing that one of the motivations for the persecution of these protestors is elite loathing of Badwhites. This is, after all, the Cold Civil War, Goodwhites versus Badwhites. If the Goodwhites could recruit black auxiliaries from Africa and condition them to torment Badwhite prisoners, I'm sure they would.

Have they, though? Why not just use black Americans, many of whom hate white people without any conditioning required? I have a fair experience of black Africans. They are much less anti-white in the generality than are black Americans. I doubt there is any school or college anywhere in black Africa teaching Critical Race Theory.

Are there any public statistics on D.C. corrections officers? How many are immigrants from Africa?

So I have some reservations here. It can't be denied, though, whatever the conditions in that jail are, that these protestors are still in jail after nine months or more without, in most cases, having been brought to trial: a gross violation of their right to a speedy and public trial, as promised by the Sixth Amendment.

And as Roger Kimball argued in a brilliant lecture at Hillsdale College on September 20th [The January 6 Insurrection Hoax] this fuss raised by the regime and its media shills over the January 6th so-called "insurrection" is of a pattern with the whole "Russian collusion" hoax of 2015–2020.

The January 6th persecutions are, in other words, another high-level hoax. As with "Russian collusion," harmless people guilty of, if anything at all, petty offenses like trespass, are having their lives destroyed, as Michael Flynn's life was destroyed. And as with "Russian collusion," persons with really serious offenses to answer for—James Comey, Michael Byrd—skip away free.

Also as with "Russian collusion," reaction to the January 6th protest has been pumped full of hysteria by Regime spokesmen and their media allies. Thus the January protests were:

“just like 9/11” (Nancy Pelosi) [US: Nancy Pelosi likens Capitol attack to 9/11, DW.com, September 17, 2021]
“an attack on our democracy…as much as Pearl Harbor was an attack on our country” (Rep. Steve Cohen) [Democratic congressman compares Capitol Hill riot to Pearl Harbor attack: 'Our democracy was at stake,' by Emma Colton, Washington Examiner, April 8, 2021]
“the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” (Joe Biden) [Biden ripped for calling Capitol riots ‘worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War,’ by Lee Brown, NY Post, April 29, 2021]

In this age we're going through, a good part of the public sphere is dominated by these hoaxes and the accompanying hysteria.

I would add to the "Russian collusion" hoax and the "Insurrection" hoax a third one, although with a more fragmentary form: the periodic show trials in which non-elite whites are hit with extravagant charges on ambiguous evidence, then have their lives destroyed by highly questionable judicial proceedings.

James Fields, Michael Slager, and Derek Chauvin; none of them malicious psychopaths, but all portrayed as such for purposes of fortifying the Regime Narrative. The Brunswick Three and Kyle Rittenhouse will serve that same purpose, and their prospects of ever again enjoying freedom are surely not good.

What is it all about, this madness? Here are two perceptive observers to tell us.

The first is Dan Gelernter, author of the American Greatness article I started this segment with. Here is the title he gave to that article: "The Injustices Facing J6 Protesters Are Warnings to You."
And here is the closing paragraph of Roger Kimball's Hillsdale College speech:

Another lesson was perfectly expressed by Donald Trump when he reflected on the unremitting tsunami of hostility that he faced as President. "They're after you," he more than once told his supporters. "I'm just in the way."