Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson
Editor’s note: Following is national radio talk-show host Dennis Prager’s extraordinary introduction to the brand-new book by Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, published by WND Books and provocatively titled, “The Antidote: Healing America From the Poison of Hate, Blame, and Victimhood.”
In an era populated by race hustlers, media hacks, politicians, community organizers and anarchic groups like Black Lives Matters, who promise to “fundamentally transform” this nation but instead are destroying the very fabric of American civilization, Peterson is, as Prager explains below, astonishingly honest, wise and courageous in his analysis. Plus, he has the answer, the solution — the antidote — to America’s most intractable problem.
Born on an Alabama plantation, Peterson was abandoned by his father before he was born. After high school, he moved to Los Angeles and for the next 20 years moved purposelessly through life, channeling his internal anger outward toward white people and America in general.
Providentially, Peterson discovered the “antidote” to that which ailed him and which still troubles not just black America, but much of the rest of the country as well! In the mission he has undertaken since, and in this hopeful and inspired book, Peterson shares what he learned on his personal road to Damascus.
“FOREWORD” to Jesse Lee Peterson’s “The Antidote: Healing America From the Poison of Hate, Blame, and Victimhood.”
By Dennis Prager
Given the nature of my work as a nationally syndicated radio talk show host, and given the moral essence of my message, I have been able to meet some of the best people in America. By best, I mean good (as in kind, just, honest), intelligent, and wise.
Jesse Lee Peterson, whom I have known for about twenty-five years, is one of these. He is, first of all, one of wisest people I have ever met.
In prior eras, wisdom was far more valued than in our time. When I was in college, fools in my generation came up with the slogan, “Never trust anyone over thirty.” That meant that wisdom no longer meant anything. In the past, the “wisdom of the ages” was the accumulated insights into life over millennia. It was believed that in order to lead a good life people needed to learn from the past – from those older than them and from those who had left us insights and have since died.
But if nothing and no one over thirty is to be trusted, wisdom no longer counts for anything.
So, when I say that Jesse Peterson is one of the wisest people I have ever met, it obviously means something only to those who value wisdom. I do. In the short time I will spend on earth, I want to soak in every great insight and idea I can. Having Jesse Peterson in my life has therefore been a gift from God. Now, with this book, multitudes of people can receive his gift of wisdom.
In the thirty-three years I have been broadcasting, I have interviewed probably a thousand authors. I have interviewed virtually every major thinker who speaks English. Yet, a full hour that I interviewed Jesse Peterson stands out as one of the most significant hours I ever broadcast. It was mesmerizing radio.
However, as good, kind, and wise as he is, he possesses one other trait that makes him particularly rare.
There are many admirable traits that a good person may possess – honesty, integrity, compassion, among others – but there is one trait that very few good people have. That trait is courage.
One of the great tragedies of the human condition is that all the goodness that people have in their hearts and express outwardly adds up to very little without courage. There were undoubtedly many good Germans. The reason the Nazis prevailed was that few had courage.
The same holds true whenever evil takes over a society. It is rarely an absence of decent people that enables the triumph of evil. It is that few of those decent people have courage.
And here is where Jesse Lee Peterson stands out.
Jesse is fearless. Or to be more accurate, he does not allow fear to govern his behavior or speech. I have no idea whether or not he has fears. I only know that fear plays no role in his work. He answers to God and his conscience.
To be honest, I have a fear – that what I have written here will sound too good to be true. Can anyone be this extraordinary? The truth is that he is better than what I have written.
And now, thanks to this book, far more people will get to know this man – his autobiography is riveting – as are his brilliant, frank, and courageous insights into perhaps the most intractable problem in American life: the black underclass.
There are a number of excellent books about black America. But if you read only one book about what ails large segments of contemporary black America – and the only way to cure that ailment – this should be the one.
There is wisdom on every page. Jesse is unflinchingly honest, willing to openly confront painful realities despite a political and cultural environment that wishes to pretend otherwise, and either ignores or severely punishes those as candid as he is.
“The Antidote” should be read and much of it memorized by every American. Black America is its subject; but it is really about the nature of truth, of men and women, of fathers and mothers, about human weakness, about anger, and about redemption through letting go of that anger. It is, for those who still value it, immeasurably wise.
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/heres-the-antidote-every-american-needs/
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