RWNJ Used A Gold Star Widow’s Suffering As Propaganda (TWEETS/VIDEO)

By
Darrell Lucus
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As part of the effort to push back against high school, college, and professional players taking a knee in protest of police brutality, right-wingers have claimed that taking a knee dishonors our men and women in uniform. Well, one right-winger’s effort to supposedly honor our troops wound up taking advantage of a Gold Star widow’s sorrow.

As the right-wing anger over players taking a knee boiled over, longtime right-wing provocateur and conspiracy theory peddler Dinesh D’Souza fired off this tweet.

The picture is of Seana Arrechaga bending over the casket of her husband, Sergeant 1st Class Ofren “AC” Arrechaga, in 2011. She was holding his hand one last time before he was laid to rest. Sgt. Arrechaga, a member of the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, was killed on March 29, 2011 along with five other soldiers during a combat operation in Kunar Province, Afghanistan.


On Thursday, Seana found out that D’Souza had swiped this picture. She was not happy.

Seana had been getting bombarded with alerts about D’Souza using the picture for most of the day, and used the opportunity to educate the nation about her husband’s story.

Wow. And there’s more where that came from;  visit a Facebook page Seana created in his honor here.

Apparently this isn’t the first time that Seana has been used as a prop.

Seana later chimed in to say that she has been overwhelmed with supportive messages.

Here’s a sample.

Meanwhile, D’Souza has been bombarded with angry tweets demanding that he honor Seana’s request and take his tweet down.

https://twitter.com/formalcloud/status/949292010933927939

However, as I write this on Saturday afternoon, the tweet is still up–and D’Souza has yet to respond.

If D’Souza really wanted to honor Arrechaga, he could have taken a lesson from country star and former Marine Josh Gracin. In 2011, he teamed up with Seana to write a song in Arrechaga’s honor, “Can’t Say Goodbye.” Watch Gracin perform an acoustic version here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ban0sBLqKKA

Wow. This was inspirational–unlike D’Souza’s outrageous tweet.


This man spent his entire adult life serving his adopted country, and made the ultimate sacrifice for it. And D’Souza saw fit to use Seana’s last moment with him to score political points? Deplorable.

(featured image courtesy Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)

Darrell Lucus
Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.

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