Thanks to my new subscribers for your interest — I greatly appreciate the support and I hope you find things to interest you here.
Happy Friday! 🥳 My father first came to New York City in his early 20’s, to work for the summer, as millions of young Irish people have done for decades. He got a menial job with the New York State Power Authority, lived in Queens, and befriended a young black man by the name of Reggie Meyers. Reggie’s mother would voice her support of the IRA to my father, who was from west Belfast. (It was the early ’70’s, at the beginning of the Troubles.)
When I was little, he would often reminisce about that first New York experience, how electrified he felt by the city from the moment he landed at JFK, and how much he enjoyed the camaraderie he shared with Reggie, who was not just his first black friend, but also his first non-Irish or British friend.
While in later years my father would frequently mock American earnestness and was mystified by their relentless optimism, he felt far more at home there than he did in his actual homeland. Especially New York City, a place he loved deeply — more so than my mother, who was actually born there. I was raised by both my parents to consider national pride to be deeply suspicious — however, my father would often say: “There are New Yorkers born all over the world.” And there was more than a hint of city pride in his voice when he said it.
I found myself thinking about this phenomenon — of immigrants loving the US more than Americans — when I was listening to a podcast with a Polish-born former Navy SEAL called Thomas “Drago” Dzieran; and also as I’ve been reading Andy Ngo’s new book on Antifa.
These are two men whose views on America’s current political crisis genuinely alarm me, and any well-meaning lefties or Democrats need to reckon with them.
“In socialism there are no political prisoners.” This was a statement made with wry irony, on Jocko Willink’s podcast, by Thomas Drago Dzieran, a Polish born former Navy SEAL.
Drago was a young man when he was rounded up in a Communist crackdown on the Solidarity movement in Poland. He was involved in printing an anti-Communist newspaper. His descriptions of how the party characterised the round-ups were chilling: officials said the political dissidents were imprisoned “for their own safety”. The guards were vicious, beating and force-feeding prisoners. He fled Poland in 1983 after being granted asylum in the US, arriving in 1984 to marvel at things like air conditioning and cereal. “The abundance of everything, is something I could not get used to for a long time,” he said in the podcast. But he seized the opportunity to do what he wanted to do. At age 30, he became a Navy SEAL. Later, he developed Connectzing, an alternative to the now heavily censored Facebook and Twitter. His improbable life has proved to him that in America, “you can be whatever you are able to be, there is nothing to stop you.”
He told Jocko that all socialism (and he includes Hitler’s national socialism) shares certain characteristics: “Intimidation, violence, poverty, having a villain.” Scapegoating an entire group, like Hitler did to the Jews, and Stalin did to the Kulacks, and the way much of the American left is doing with “whiteness”, is a toxic movement’s way of forewarning us that violence will soon follow.
He says: “the things that are happening now are very disturbing to me. They are too much like that socialism that I experienced.”
Antifa scourge Andy Ngo is a figure who is either dismissed or reviled by mainstream media. This despite the fact that his dogged reporting of the politically-motivated violence that has plagued his hometown of Portland for years would in any other climate seem legitimate, if not heroic.
Unlike Drago, he is second generation. He was born to Vietnamese refugees in the US and grew up in Oregon. His parents were both sent to labour camps after the Communists came to power.
“In the months after the fall of Saigon in 1975, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese were ordered to register for mandatory ‘reeducation,’ euphemistically named by the new government. Those targeted were led to believe the classes would last mere days.”
His father laboured in the fields of a commune, farming crops “they never got to eat.” They were underfed and sick. His mother’s family owned a business:
“a product of hard work within a generation rather than through inheritance or nobility. But it was of no difference to the government. It was argued that the family’s wealth was acquired through the exploitation of workers.”
Everything was taken from them. Then they too were sent to camps, where his mother — age 16 — was tormented by fire ants and bitten by a rat. She and her siblings were interrogated by guards. And they were indoctrinated:
“Day in and day out, they had to read and repeat communist texts. They were required to confess their alleged ‘sins’ against the Vietnamese people. The more depraved one could portray oneself, regardless of the truth, the better the confession would be received by the camp leaders. The goal of the indoctrination classes was to break the will, spirit and individuality of prisoners so that they could be reformed into ‘proper’ socialist citizens.”
In 2019, Ngo was attacked at a Portland demonstration that turned violent. He was surrounded and beaten by leftwing protestors. It left him with bleeding on the brain, an injury which required extensive and ongoing treatment. He was also hit with a milkshake laced with cement, which left his face burned and swollen. (Though L.A. Times wrote dismissively that the substance thrown in his face was “far more likely… a vegan blend heavy on cashew butter.”)
Emotionally, the attack left him deeply shaken.
“Hour by hour, I laid in bed thinking about what could motivate those who say they are defending people of colour to brutally beat a person of colour.”
His book “Unmasked: Inside antifa’s radical plan to destroy America” in an exhaustive look into the actions of those on the far-left in the US. The book is a thoroughly sourced, nearly 1000 page documentation of the history, aims, and tactics of antifa. It includes a 15 page syllabus given out to people who want to join. Unit 5 of the syllabus is titled “Class struggle and white supremacy.” It asks:
“What is the relationship between class and white supremacy?”
And: “what lessons can we learn from militant liberatory movements in the past?”
And: “how does our work fit into the broader struggle for a classless free society?”
I wonder would these “liberatory” movements, and the classless free society they allude to, be modelled on the Vietnamese communism that devastated Ngo’s family?
In fact, the antifa syllabus is actually very similar to what is being passed off at American schools as education.
Despite all his personal and professional experience with the dangers of the far left, he is described in the mainstream as a “right-wing troll” who “took a milkshake to the face”; and a “dangerous grifter” who “poses as a journalist.”
The cosseted American chattering classes, accustomed as they are to unfettered and consequence-free speech, find in Ngo an easy and irresistible target. They ignore his message at their own peril.
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Two essential immigrant voices you need to listen to right now
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Thanks to my new subscribers for your interest — I greatly appreciate the support and I hope you find things to interest you here.
Happy Friday! 🥳
My father first came to New York City in his early 20’s, to work for the summer, as millions of young Irish people have done for decades. He got a menial job with the New York State Power Authority, lived in Queens, and befriended a young black man by the name of Reggie Meyers. Reggie’s mother would voice her support of the IRA to my father, who was from west Belfast. (It was the early ’70’s, at the beginning of the Troubles.)
When I was little, he would often reminisce about that first New York experience, how electrified he felt by the city from the moment he landed at JFK, and how much he enjoyed the camaraderie he shared with Reggie, who was not just his first black friend, but also his first non-Irish or British friend.
While in later years my father would frequently mock American earnestness and was mystified by their relentless optimism, he felt far more at home there than he did in his actual homeland. Especially New York City, a place he loved deeply — more so than my mother, who was actually born there. I was raised by both my parents to consider national pride to be deeply suspicious — however, my father would often say: “There are New Yorkers born all over the world.” And there was more than a hint of city pride in his voice when he said it.
I found myself thinking about this phenomenon — of immigrants loving the US more than Americans — when I was listening to a podcast with a Polish-born former Navy SEAL called Thomas “Drago” Dzieran; and also as I’ve been reading Andy Ngo’s new book on Antifa.
These are two men whose views on America’s current political crisis genuinely alarm me, and any well-meaning lefties or Democrats need to reckon with them.
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Drago Dzieran
“In socialism there are no political prisoners.” This was a statement made with wry irony, on Jocko Willink’s podcast, by Thomas Drago Dzieran, a Polish born former Navy SEAL.
Drago was a young man when he was rounded up in a Communist crackdown on the Solidarity movement in Poland. He was involved in printing an anti-Communist newspaper. His descriptions of how the party characterised the round-ups were chilling: officials said the political dissidents were imprisoned “for their own safety”. The guards were vicious, beating and force-feeding prisoners. He fled Poland in 1983 after being granted asylum in the US, arriving in 1984 to marvel at things like air conditioning and cereal. “The abundance of everything, is something I could not get used to for a long time,” he said in the podcast. But he seized the opportunity to do what he wanted to do. At age 30, he became a Navy SEAL. Later, he developed Connectzing, an alternative to the now heavily censored Facebook and Twitter. His improbable life has proved to him that in America, “you can be whatever you are able to be, there is nothing to stop you.”
He told Jocko that all socialism (and he includes Hitler’s national socialism) shares certain characteristics: “Intimidation, violence, poverty, having a villain.” Scapegoating an entire group, like Hitler did to the Jews, and Stalin did to the Kulacks, and the way much of the American left is doing with “whiteness”, is a toxic movement’s way of forewarning us that violence will soon follow.
He says: “the things that are happening now are very disturbing to me. They are too much like that socialism that I experienced.”
Share
Andy Ngo
Antifa scourge Andy Ngo is a figure who is either dismissed or reviled by mainstream media. This despite the fact that his dogged reporting of the politically-motivated violence that has plagued his hometown of Portland for years would in any other climate seem legitimate, if not heroic.
Unlike Drago, he is second generation. He was born to Vietnamese refugees in the US and grew up in Oregon. His parents were both sent to labour camps after the Communists came to power.
His father laboured in the fields of a commune, farming crops “they never got to eat.” They were underfed and sick. His mother’s family owned a business:
Everything was taken from them. Then they too were sent to camps, where his mother — age 16 — was tormented by fire ants and bitten by a rat. She and her siblings were interrogated by guards. And they were indoctrinated:
In 2019, Ngo was attacked at a Portland demonstration that turned violent. He was surrounded and beaten by leftwing protestors. It left him with bleeding on the brain, an injury which required extensive and ongoing treatment. He was also hit with a milkshake laced with cement, which left his face burned and swollen. (Though L.A. Times wrote dismissively that the substance thrown in his face was “far more likely… a vegan blend heavy on cashew butter.”)
Emotionally, the attack left him deeply shaken.
His book “Unmasked: Inside antifa’s radical plan to destroy America” in an exhaustive look into the actions of those on the far-left in the US. The book is a thoroughly sourced, nearly 1000 page documentation of the history, aims, and tactics of antifa. It includes a 15 page syllabus given out to people who want to join. Unit 5 of the syllabus is titled “Class struggle and white supremacy.” It asks:
“What is the relationship between class and white supremacy?”
And: “what lessons can we learn from militant liberatory movements in the past?”
And: “how does our work fit into the broader struggle for a classless free society?”
I wonder would these “liberatory” movements, and the classless free society they allude to, be modelled on the Vietnamese communism that devastated Ngo’s family?
In fact, the antifa syllabus is actually very similar to what is being passed off at American schools as education.
Despite all his personal and professional experience with the dangers of the far left, he is described in the mainstream as a “right-wing troll” who “took a milkshake to the face”; and a “dangerous grifter” who “poses as a journalist.”
The cosseted American chattering classes, accustomed as they are to unfettered and consequence-free speech, find in Ngo an easy and irresistible target. They ignore his message at their own peril.
Share