We Must Stand at the Foot of the Cross, and Preach Freedom to Slaves
Two events, seemingly far apart, converged for me and marked both high points and low points for my life. First, the efforts of the Democrats and the NeverTrump Republicans to make the January 6 march on Washington sound like the Fascist March on Rome. The mainstream media are trying to tie the conservative groups that rallied to protest election fraud to the small number of rowdies who barged into the Capitol.
Elites wish to use a tiny percentage of troublemakers to tar a peaceful demonstration. Then to exploit the violence by roping in every effective conservative group in the country, and Clarence Thomas’s wife, as “seditious” potential terrorists. But the evidence wasn’t there. Because it isn’t true.
A Last Stand for Decency
Second, on January 19 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took a long, long overdue step. He certified officially on behalf of the U.S. government that China is engaging in a genocide. The evidence is there. Because it’s true.
China has long occupied the nation of East Turkistan, and in recent years ratcheted up its vicious persecution of Uyghur Muslims. We’ve long known that China puts Uyghurs in concentration camps. And that it forces Uyghur women to have abortions.
More recently we learned that China steals and sells Uyghurs’ kidneys and lungs on the world black market. Also that Uyghurs toil as slaves for suppliers of Nike, Apple, and dozens of other rich corporations. Now in a piece of bitter historical irony, we learn that Uyghur slaves are … picking cotton. No joke. The Chinese Communist Party really is that shameless.
Will You Speak for the Persecuted?
What brings these two incidents together for me? That’s easy. When I spoke to a crowd of Trump supporters in D.C. on January 5, my subject was the Uyghurs. I was calling on the U.S. government to take the step that Mike Pompeo just did.
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America needs to be on record as a nation in denouncing this historic crime against human dignity and religious freedom. I’m proud that now we are, and grateful to the Trump administration for putting us on the right side of a question that will be posed on the Day of Judgment: “When I was in a prison camp, did you speak for me?”
Standing with the Abandoned
In many, many other ways the Trump administration has stood with the vulnerable and abandoned:
Pre-born children worldwide.
Victims of human smuggling through our broken southern border.
The Little Sisters of the poor refusing to hand out abortion pills as the price of tending the dying.
Christians in the Middle East trying to recover from past administrations’ imperial follies.
Blue collar workers seeking a decent wage.
Black and Hispanic Americans seeking real, responsive representation in government.
Soldiers who hope to come home from endless, directionless wars and occupations previous administrations sent them to suffer through.
Sipping Cocktails with the Smug
The list is quite a bit longer. But I think I can prove my point more easily by pointing the other direction. All the most powerful, privileged, and smug organizations on earth ranged against Trump and his voters:
Deep State prosecutors willing to illegally wiretap and frame innocent citizens, because of their politics.
Trillion-dollar companies that profit from slave labor in China.
Global Big Tech monopolies that demand special legal carve-outs, and censor free speech.
The abortion industry, which profits from trading in death and despair.
Privileged radical dilettantes who play at revolution from behind the ornate gates of their lavish, exclusive neighborhoods, and tittered as our cities burn.
In other words, The Hive. The inbred Woke elites who do very well, thanks very much, from crony capitalism, selling Che Guevara shirts to spoiled Ivy League students made of cotton picked by slaves of Communist China. (To choose just one image that might help put things in focus.)
The Deplorables and the Untouchables
I feel privileged that I was able to speak about vulnerable people hunted by the government for their religion — the Uyghurs — to an audience of “Deplorables” in America. At least the elites deplore them, and wish to silence, cow, and disenfranchise half the country. If it comes down to a choice between the oppressor and the oppressed, I pray I will always know the right side to choose. And stand with them, to take the heat from the media, the politicized prosecutors, and the vicious pressure groups that label pro-life groups as “hate groups.”
You and I might have to suffer far worse before this is done. We must stand together, with the imprisoned Uyghur and the pregnant teen, with the exploited immigrant and the jobless worker, the weary soldier and the persecuted nun. My organization, the Vulnerable People Project, was founded for this very purpose. My book, The Race to Save Our Century, predicted a crackdown was coming. It laid out program for resistance and renewal. We must form a Coalition of the Forgotten, and not be shamed or silenced until the world learns to remember.
Jason Jones is a senior contributor to The Stream. He is a film producer, author, activist and human rights worker. You can follow him @JasonJonesShow.