BY LEE KESSLER

You can call it Diversity, Equity, Inclusion.   You can call it ESG.  You can call it Reparations.  No matter how you dress this verbal conflagration that is racing across the world, infecting the logic and common sense of otherwise good, stable nations and people, extortion is still extortion.

There are legal definitions for extortion of course.   But, even figuratively, Dictionary.com defines extortion as the act of “using violence, threats, intimidation, or pressure from one’s authority to force someone to hand over money (or something of value) or do something they don’t want to do.”.

The news is full daily of people who are victims of the definition above, especially of being made to do something they don’t want to do, or prevented from doing something they do want to do.   For example, having watched the Oversight Committee hearing with the FBI Whistleblowers who were extorted not to blow the whistle, it was obvious they went ahead on their own convictions, and suffered mightily as the FBI withdrew money, support, livelihood, and their good names.

Another news agency reported last week that the environment in the FBI is now toxic, and that FBI employees are terrified.   Of what, you ask?   Of losing their jobs, and other retaliations obviously. They fear loss of homes, income, respect, titles–symbols of success.  I would argue though that character matters more.  One might not have a legacy income to leave his children, but the legacy of honor and courage is a far more important example for them to have witnessed.  Money comes and goes. There are all kinds of ways of making money. But character is lasting.

Last week also a Toronto Blue Jays pitcher, Anthony Bass, was sheepishly apologizing for having posted something that some “god” somewhere deemed unacceptable and who extorted him by the new means of silencing people and getting them to violate–if not even abrogate–their own First Amendment rights.   It was clear he was in fear of being sent back to the Minors, after having worked his whole life to get to be a Major League pitcher.

Dozens of corporations across this country are spitting on their loyal customers of decades as they race to embrace DEI, and outdo each other in the Wokism flavor of the month.   Why?   Again, what “god” are they satisfying?  Who is threatening them so much that they risk, and are experiencing, massive drops in sales revenue, stock prices, customer loyalty and more?  Who is threatening them with being labeled racist, or a bigot, intimidating them to the degree that all rational thinking has left the boardrooms?

The examples are too many and too frequent to catalog, but it seems clear that the message to the lone individual or corporation that tries to stand on its original principles and morals is this:  “Do as we demand OR we will hurt you!”  And that, I submit, is extortion—and a diabolical one at that.  Demanding money at gunpoint in order to provide “protection” has long been deemed illegal.   Mob syndicates when caught experience criminal prosecution.

But those who would implant and enforce DEI and ESG know that they are skirting the law here, since they hide behind the guise of “merely representing the will of fair-minded people.”  I do not know whether or not the United States has in fact devolved to the point that bullying people into submission is the new modus operandi, embraced and agreed to by our fellow countrymen.  I pray we have not sunk to that barbarism in human interactions.

I myself was raised with the old adage of “two wrongs don’t make a right.”   Adherence to that one truth alone would stop almost all this nonsense.  No matter how wronged you or I feel we have been, that does not justify our embracing the techniques of our wrongdoer and deploying them ourselves.   That can only lead to an ever-expanding sphere of one wrong being met with another wrong which is met with yet another wrong.  The society spirals down, and brutality rises.  Two wrongs make two wrongs, period!

Further, any of us who have been bullied somehow understand to either stop the bully, or get away from him.  To become a bully ourselves is to assume the identity of the enemy.  I would like to suggest that if you have been bullied, the wrong thing to do is to become a bully.  Put simply, at that point, the bully wins.

When I was young I was bullied because my father was the strict school principal, and the way people felt they could hurt him—since they were too cowardly to face him straight up—was to bully his little girl.  Running to my mom in tears, she taught me to understand why I was being attacked, and to decide those people were not worthy of my attention, let alone my friendship.  Bolstered by that sense of reality—that people have to qualify for one’s friendship—I chose to walk away, or challenge directly, but without using any of their degrading tactics.

That in turn served me well in my adult years in Hollywood.  I want you to understand that the person writing this commentary has factually been discriminated against and “extorted” because of my gender, my race, my age, my religion, and my politics.  I have personally paid a price financially and career-wise for my refusal to yield to someone’s demands that I do something I felt was wrong, or harm someone else, or abandon my beliefs and values or they would see that “I never worked again.”  The words of my mother have never left me.  Those people who would do that to another are not worthy of me. And they are not worthy of you!

And very specifically I remember always something my father taught me.  He said one day when he was under attack by townspeople and being pressured to back off a project he knew would be vital to the education and safety of his students, and indeed the town, “Lee, you don’t live this life to be liked.  You live it to be effective.”

I never forgot.   My message to all who are torn now between doing the right thing even though there will be repercussions, or just cowing in the face of the extortion demands of those in authority over you—you may feel the only option you have in order to survive is to yield, to submit.  I doubt it.   And that is my parting gift to you: that doubt.

www.LeeKessler.net

www.whitekingrising.com

Has DA Alvin Bragg inadvertently created an alliance between African-Americans and Donald Trump? What a question!

Though this would likely be the farthest thing from his mind, and completely contrary to his intentions in his unjust and unethical indictment of a former President and front-runner in an upcoming Presidential election, Alvin Bragg may have just forged an alliance that would have been considered unlikely, if not impossible, before last Tuesday.

Many do not realize that in the election of 2020, then-President Trump picked up significant percentages of voters amongst minorities that historically don’t vote for Republican candidates.   His popularity amongst African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians was rising in all categories.  Talk about forgotten men and women.   Those are people that the Democrats view as a cinch for them.  It never occurred to them that those groups are comprised of individuals—not voting blocks who swim like a school of fish.  And, as the smart, common sense people they are, those voters were noticing something.

They noticed that Trump funded, for the long term, the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, eliminating those fine institutions from having to come begging every year for funding.  He lowered the unemployment rate amongst African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans to the lowest point in history.  If my memory serves me, he further raised the wages and incomes in each of these categories significantly, using his economic policies in an attempt to raise everyone into the middle class, and to increase household incomes.

In a multi-pronged approach to the crisis in our inner cities, he brought school choice and school vouchers to the table, making it possible for young boys and girls who might be trapped in inadequate educational systems to have a chance at a good education and better life.   And he was putting that into the hands of the parents. Until the election of 2020.

Coupled at the same time were his initiatives to bring business, money, and job opportunities into those same communities, making it possible for the neighborhoods to prosper, and for future generations to have a true place in our country.

Even more importantly as I watched him listen to the issues brought before him about the Justice System, and its unfairness to blacks and minorities, he was creating prison sentencing reform—not by just willy-nilly releasing hardened and violent offenders as is happening in many cities today—but by working to get the prison sentences proportionate to the crime in the first place.

Many did not get the word on any of this, since Big Media didn’t want to cover the possibility that someone could actually be raised up, given that the controlling politicians make money and win elections by keeping a people oppressed.  Many did get the word, however, and I believe that contributed to his steady rise in voters from those groups.

But there was one area for sure that African-Americans in particular continually rail against.   That is what they refer to as “unequal justice under the law.”   Though there are likely many grievances, two stand out to me.  One is the perceived prejudice against a person because of his skin color and economic strata.  The second is the over-charging of individuals who really can’t defend themselves in the court system, where public defenders may not provide adequate defense.  That leads to higher conviction numbers of excessively charged crimes, resulting in excessive sentencing.  And, in my opinion, it has opened the door to fears of persecution by our Justice system, and to manipulation by people who benefit from citizen against citizen.

I am not here to debate that, but just to point out a perception that is widely embraced, and which is hindering the prosperity of our great nation.  It is also destroying our humanity.

Then along comes Alvin Bragg, who has just now, with bias and malice aforethought persecuted the exact opposite type of citizen:  an older white male who is wealthy, and who nonetheless has been hounded relentlessly, treated constantly with a double standard, “pulled over” and “searched” for just being there, and now excessively charged.  Misdemeanor elevated to felony with no statement of the related felony.   One charge multiplied 34 times it seems to exaggerate the alleged threat of the person charged.  And consecutive sentencing—if convicted—of over 100 years.

And in so doing I believe Alvin Bragg will be “hoisted by his own petard”—unintentionally bringing together two formerly unlikely bedfellows.  Those being the African-American community that has been long-suffering and the white guy who was enacting policies designed to help in those arenas.  No one on either side is perfect.  But common sense citizens I believe can still recognize when someone else is being mistreated, and that it is not all about color. 

I believe we have an innate sense of fair play as American citizens, and we do struggle and resist when we see unfair, unequal treatment under the law.  Donald J. Trump had an intellectual understanding for sure about the problems in the system. He no doubt had empathy. But, until his arrest, it was not visceral or personal.   Now he understands at a level that no other President or other-wise interested, albeit a bit sanctimonious, politicians understand.

This is no longer about only black people being mistreated, or the poor.  When it crossed into the current charges and legal battles, it transcended the arena the manipulators play in.   They wanted it to be about powerful politicians against other powerful wealthy people—with the victory occurring on some elevated plane.  And they wanted it to be about impoverished minorities on a lower plane.

But Bragg’s actions have breached the divider between the privileged and the unprivileged.  He has torn open a hole, revealing the problem is not really about color or education.   It is about corruption, ambition, and complete disregard for the nation as a whole.  For the first time white Americans who may have intellectually understood and debated the plight of their fellow citizens, without viscerally understanding it, are now witnessing unequal justice under the law happening to them.

Americans have always come together when there is a common enemy.  Remember how we were after 9/11? If there is no common enemy—in either person or ideology—we tend to drift and just wave at each other’s dilemmas without joining forces.  Well, Alvin Bragg may have just created a common enemy—unequal justice under the law—which transcends now and hereafter color, ethnicity, education, wealth, and much more.   And in so doing, two groups who want to be in harmony but have not attained the higher levels we are capable of, may now be looking not at each other as the source of their burdens, but rather at hate-filled corrupt men and women who would suppress and repress their fellow countrymen–no matter their color.

Now that, to me, is a cause worthy of uniting us.  And it may provide to this Presidential candidate the empathy and support of people who know exactly how he feels, and more importantly, who now know he knows exactly how they feel.  That alliance, if the individuals who are aware of what I just said unite, will change politics, the nation, and the history of our people forever.   Wouldn’t it be deliciously ironic if the malevolent Bragg brought about the uniting of the minority communities, who frankly have been taken for granted by the people they have voted for, and the would-be President who formerly tried to help.  Personally, I love irony!  And I despise injustice, anywhere, anytime.  How about you?