This is the other side of the story, from Greg Palast.
Palast
has disappointed me by saying, esentially that all the electorial
fraud was on the side of the Republicans while ignoring the egregious
fraud from the side of the DNC.
What
this says to me is that there was violence on the extremes of both
sides – Antifa and White Supremacists.
Charlottesville: A Gun In His Face, but he got the photo
14
August, 2017
Previously
unreleased photos of four neo-Nazis attacking black school teacher
De’Andre Harris with iron bars and lumber in a parking garage in
Charlottesville on Saturday, Aug 12. © Zach D Roberts, 2017.
Don’t
look away. Four white neo-Nazis are beating a Black man, crawling on
the ground, with their metal poles and a yellow hunk of lumber. The
beating continues — there’s blood on the pavement.
Our
photographer, Zach D. Roberts, continues to shoot — even as a white
militant raises a 9mm pistol to his face.
One
photo has gone
viral internationally.
These others we bring you here because they must be seen. Including,
for the first time, the gunman.
Welcome
to Charlottesville, USA. Trump’s America, month eight.
According
to the President, the violence was perpetrated on “many sides.”
The only sides I see are the beaters and the beaten; De’Andre on
the ground with the alt-Right storm troopers with weapons.
Zach
D. Roberts is an investigative photojournalist who has been with the
Palast Investigations team for eleven years.
Here
is Zach’s report:
De’Andre Harris, the school teacher, was walking down the street with friends, trading taunts with the white supremacist demonstrators.
Harris’ jibes were hardly fighting words. “Go home! Leave town!” Locals like Harris resented the jack-ass invasion.
That’s when fists flew and Harris was slammed by one of the white guys straight into a parking lot barrier so hard the yellow wooden arm broke.
De’Andre fell to the ground, alone, surrounded by all these white guys — and they started beating him with the poles that almost all the white supremacists were carrying.
In
the photos, you can see one white guy picking up the yellow barrier
arm and raising the three foot hunk of lumber high over his head
before he brings it down on De’Andre — who is being kicked by
another white man’s boots while two others bring down metal rods on
the prone man.
And
no, that’s not a cop on the left in the photo — that’s a
neo-Nazi in full riot gear. (Where were the cops? Good
question: this parking garage is next to the Charlottesville
Police Station.)
De’Andre
was saved when some gutsy young Black men — with no weapons — ran
into the underground garage, which promted the white posse to
scatter.
Except
for one. The gunman.
A
white militant with a 9mm pistol, then aimed at rescuers. © Zach D
Roberts, 2017
He
pulled out what looks to be a 9mm pistol, maybe a Glock
semi-automatic, and positioned himself to fire on the rescue squad.
But then he heard the click of Zach’s camera, just three feet away,
and realized he was getting photographed.
Simultaneously,
Zach realized he’d left his bullet-proof vest in his car. (I’ll
have that discussion with him later.)
In
this strange stand-off, the camera proved mightier than the bullet.
In his tiny little brain, the would-be shooter figured it would be
wiser to quickly conceal the weapon and flee.
De’Andre
“ran into the garage’s staircase and collapsed bleeding profusely
from the face.” Zach waited with him and his protectors for half an
hour but no ambulance arrived for him or the other people who were
injured.
So,
that’s the news from Trump’s USA. Nazis marching in the
street, nuclear war with Korea, the “military option” for
Venezuela. And it’s only Monday.
I
was going to write about Korea, then Venezuela,
but then the Armed Alt-Righteous exposed themselves to Zach’s lens.
Photojournalist
Zach D. Roberts is Associate Producer and stake-out videographer for
Greg Palast’s film, “The
Best Democracy Money Can Buy.”
We are now making the post-election
update.
You can add your name as a producer for
a minimum tax deductible contribution of $1,000
($500 for Co-Producer)
or get a screen
credit as a supporterfor $100 minimum
donation. And you’ll get a signed copy of your film on DVD.
Or help us fund our continued investigation of 'their' vote-swiping
schemes for any
amount no
matter how large or small.
The
Virginia story is not over. We will be going back to Virginia
on September 9,
to the capital, Richmond, to fight for the right for Black folk to
arm themselves with the one weapon these white punks fear most: the
vote.
Between
snapping photos of America gone mad, Zach has been working these past
four years with me on a story of how Trump’s henchman, one Kris
Kobach, now head of Trump’s so-called, “Election Integrity
Commission,” conceived of a secretive program to remove hundreds of
thousands of Black Americans from the voter rolls.
Virginia
removed an astonishing 41,637 voters based on Kobach’s accusation
they could have voted twice. Not one of the accused was arrested
— but, you won’t be surprised to hear, the list of the “scrubbed”
was filled with African-American names. And Virginia is removing tens
of thousands more with this Jim Crow tactic — despite a nominally
Democratic Governor, Terry McAuliffe.
Virginia
refused us their “scrub” lists. But Zach Roberts, by stellar
investigative
work, obtained a copy — half a million names in all — much to the state’s dismay. And those lists are every bit as obscenely racist and, in the long run, far more wounding, than the iron rods of the neo-Nazis.
work, obtained a copy — half a million names in all — much to the state’s dismay. And those lists are every bit as obscenely racist and, in the long run, far more wounding, than the iron rods of the neo-Nazis.
So,
thank you, Zach, for the photos that bear witness and inside
documents that reveal their secret schemes.
For
the rest of us, our job is simpler: not to look away.
***
Greg
Palast is the Director and Zach D. Roberts the Associate Producer
of The
Best Democracy Money Can Buy, a
film about racial vote suppression and billionaires behind it.
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