The War Has Two Fronts
Many Americans realize that we are at war, but few see that our war has two fronts. We all know about the war on terrorism - and as hard as this new type of war is to grasp, it is the easier of the two fronts to identify. The more difficult front is our own divisive culture war.
There are many indications that we are involved in a type of civil war. In 1970 Charles A. Reich captured a good forward-looking view of the war in his book The Greening of America:
Certainly one would not argue that the cultural revolutionists (typified by JFKerry and crew) would personally endorse the violence of the terrorist front. But since "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" - they can passively rejoice at the damage on traditional America that is inflicted by terrorists.
Some may argue that the cultural revolutionists have nearly finished their work in destroying what once characterized our country. As long as we slumber and allow the enemies of traditional America unfettered access to our homes, our places of worship and our government we traditionalists cannot stand, we can only yield to the approaching flood. Only when we awaken our faculties to see and fight our real adversaries can we begin to stem the tide.
As long as we view either enemy as an amorphous swarm they remain only a nuisance and we their helpless victims. Like ants that pick away at a dying carcass, these enemies can hardly be stopped by swatting one or another individual. It is the nest, the hive, the queens that must be our targets.
Bush placed a name on our enemies in the war on terror and he focused our defence. He was able to put a face and a locus of control on the swarming islamofascist enemies that comprise the violent front of this war. We need a hero to likewise clarify our enemies on the other front - or the light from our country and our traditions will pass as the flame of a candle in the wind.
There are many indications that we are involved in a type of civil war. In 1970 Charles A. Reich captured a good forward-looking view of the war in his book The Greening of America:
There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past.The "revolution," as Reich calls it, is the other front of the war we fight. Because the revolutionists, who became visible in the 1960s, are intent on overthrowing the "old order" of values and social mores that characterized the America they despised - they are gleefully observing the more violent front we call the war on terrorism.
It will originate with the individual and with culture, and it will change the political structure only as its final act. It will not require violence to succeed, and it cannot be successfully resisted by violence. It is now spreading with amazing rapidity, and already our laws, institutions and social structure are changing in consequence. It promises a higher reason, a more human community, and a new and liberated individual. Its ultimate creation will be a new and enduring wholeness and beauty -- a renewed relationship of man to himself, to other men, to society, to nature, and to
the land.
This is the revolution of the new generation. Their protest and rebellion, their culture, clothes, music, drugs, ways of thought, and liberated life-style are not a passing fad or a form of dissent and refusal, nor are they in any sense irrational. The whole emerging pattern, from ideals to campus demonstrations to beads and bell bottoms to the Woodstock Festival, makes sense and is part of a consistent philosophy. It is both necessary and inevitable, and in time it will include not only youth, but all people in America.
Certainly one would not argue that the cultural revolutionists (typified by JFKerry and crew) would personally endorse the violence of the terrorist front. But since "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" - they can passively rejoice at the damage on traditional America that is inflicted by terrorists.
Some may argue that the cultural revolutionists have nearly finished their work in destroying what once characterized our country. As long as we slumber and allow the enemies of traditional America unfettered access to our homes, our places of worship and our government we traditionalists cannot stand, we can only yield to the approaching flood. Only when we awaken our faculties to see and fight our real adversaries can we begin to stem the tide.
As long as we view either enemy as an amorphous swarm they remain only a nuisance and we their helpless victims. Like ants that pick away at a dying carcass, these enemies can hardly be stopped by swatting one or another individual. It is the nest, the hive, the queens that must be our targets.
Bush placed a name on our enemies in the war on terror and he focused our defence. He was able to put a face and a locus of control on the swarming islamofascist enemies that comprise the violent front of this war. We need a hero to likewise clarify our enemies on the other front - or the light from our country and our traditions will pass as the flame of a candle in the wind.
posted by NorthShoreHI at 7:51 AM
5 Comments:
I don't get it... I really don't. In what way did the cultural revolutionists destroy what once characterized our country? What does characterize America? Does Christian moralism really define America? Didn't open-mindedness as manifested in the bill of rights define America? Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of belief. America is the land of diversity. It is the land where all religions could live side-by-side in peace. Is talk of war in this context really appropriate? Doesn't it just make matters worse?
Don't get me wrong... I don't condemn Christian values, in no way. I subscribe to many of them. If you condemn gay marriage, do so. If you condemn abortion, fine with me. BUT, as I said above, America is the land of diversity. People are entitled to their different opinions and just because somebody disagrees with you doesn't mean he wants to destroy the foundation of our country. I want to remind you of one thing: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was actually persecuted in the early days of America, Joseph Smith assassinated by people who were not open-minded enough to accept the new gospel that is now one of the largest Christian churches in the United States.
You make the point exactly yourself: "Didn't open-mindedness as manifested in the bill of rights define America? Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of belief. America is the land of diversity. It is the land where all religions could live side-by-side in peace."
Things that lead toward freedom, and toward real diversity of thinking - these are the values of traditional America.
Tyranny, on the other hand, is quite another thing. If you will notice, the revolutionists are, like other revolutionists of our age, intent on destroying the old order so that the new order can emerge. And, in this destruction and the setting up of the new order, the revolutionists resort to tyranny.
The Marxist view has always been to destroy that which exists so that a "better" society can emerge. But this "better society" has always been a myth - it has never sprung up from destruction. The revolutionsist is a destroyer - one who takes freedom and imposes a new tyranny while proclaiming that they are liberating.
I can tell you that the new revolutionists would take from me (in higher taxes) to pay for thier pet programs. They would restrict the use of my land for their pet programs. They would restrict the words that I say in public to further their agenda. They would restrict my economic freedom to further their view of what a better future might be. The "better society" that they offer comes at the expense of my freedom.
Joseph Smith, on the otherhand, offered a diversity of thought. This diversity of thought took nothing from those that chose not to participate in his vision.
True freedom is bought with personal sacrifice, not with the sacrifice of those that pseudo reformers think should pay.
Well, I certainly do see your point. Of course, freedom of speech can only go so far. As we probably all know, your personal liberties go only as far as they do not curtail the freedom of others. Marxists go way beyond what we consider leftist nowadays. Plus, every existing communist regime we ever saw proved to be full of tyranny, turned against its own people and miserably failed.
But I can't quite keep apart your arguments there. Who do you mean when you talk about the revolutionaries? Is it the Marxists and Leninists? Or is it the Kerry presidential campaign? I can easily see how John Kerry is much further left than George W. Bush is but he's nowhere near at par with Marx or Lenin, so you're kind of loosing me there.
See, in Europe there are things like compulsory health insurance or extensive social welfare. Sure, this costs a lot of money. But then again it's a matter of priorities: What's more important -- paying low taxes or being sure that everybody can get the health care that he needs? I see how one can answer this question in two ways and I'm not going to judge anyone for his answer to this question, however I expect the same thing vice versa. I'm just asking you one thing: Is Europe Marxist? Is the French government a revolutionist communist regime for advocating things like compulsory health insurance at the expense of high taxes?
You know, I would like America to be the kind of country where you can criticize the president without being called unpatriotic. I would like it to be the kind of country where you can say "I want better health care benefits at the cost of higher taxes because of abc". Then, if somebody disagrees with that, he would say "I disagree with that, this doesn't make sense because of xyz" and then free elections would decide which direction to go. What I don't want to hear as an answer to criticism like the above is "you are trying to destroy what America stands for". That's just simply not true and it is not fair criticism.
What's more, I would like to see some actual matter-of-fact debate going on. I want somebody to explain to me, in detail, why George W. Bush will be a better president than John F. Kerry would have been and I would like that somebody to actually try and understand where I am coming from if I disagree, just as I would try and understand that someone's arguments.
I want to see a Republican willing and able to lead that discussion and maybe then I'll change my mind about the direction that Bush is taking America. Do you know somebody willing to engage in that kind of discussion?
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
You ask some difficult questions - "Who do you mean when you talk about the revolutionaries? Is it the Marxists and Leninists? Or is it the Kerry presidential campaign?" - My answer would have to make the destinction based on degree. Clearly the Marxists and Leninists are revolutionaries - but they are extreme and openly acknowledge the need for the overthrow of the existing hierarchies. They will acknowledge that the necessary steps of their agenda are, in essence: "Existing Structure" => "Revolution" => "Anarchy" => "Empowerment of Proletariat" => "New 'Socialist' Structure"
Noam Chomsky is probably the best known of the modern-day apologists for Marxism / Revolution / Anarchy (see, for example, http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/rbr/noamrbr2.html). He states there quite clearly,
"I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom. That includes political power, ownership and management, relations among men and women, parents and children, our control over the fate of future generations (the basic moral imperative behind the environmental movement, in my view), and much else. Naturally this means a challenge to the huge institutions of coercion and control: the state, the unaccountable private tyrannies that control most of the domestic and international economy, and so on. But not only these. That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism: the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority, and that it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met."
To the 'Revolutionists,' the breaking down of existing structures (governmental, societal, moral) is essential. In order to "empower" the people, they believe that they must destroy the existing order. And this is where their tyranny is made manifest. Do they determine, by popular vote, 'shall we dismantle our society?' Of course they don't. They determine, based on their detached attitude of we-know-what-is-best, and seek to advance their agenda - even if it is against the will of the majority.
Is Kerry a revolutionist of this ilk? Perhaps not as vocally as Chomsky - but very definitely cut of the same cloth.
You further ask, "Is Europe Marxist? Is the French government a revolutionist communist regime for advocating things like compulsory health insurance at the expense of high taxes?"
I would love to say 'absolutely not!' to the above, but for some reason I just can't. Europe, and the French may not be 'Marxist' - but they clearly are more 'Socialist' (which is way, way down the road toward Marxist) than we in the U.S.A.
The Europeans have moved to dismantle much of the old capitalist structure there. Is that good? Is that bad? It depends on your perspective.
I am conservative, in most respects. That means that I like to 'conserve' or preserve the order that has existed. I like the structure, I like the certainty. I can raise children to succeed in a society that I can understand. If I do not understand a society, or if I feel that I cannot succeed or teach my children to succeed - then I might be one to seek the demise of that society.
This is what the left seeks. It seeks to change the existing structure to something new. It seeks to do so without the open consent of those affected. It seeks an agenda of change, of breaking down, of making way for the new. High tax rates on the 'rich' really mean high tax rates on those that are high earners. That is the essence of capitalism - to have some highly paid and some lowly paid. If we all earn the same, we break down capitalism - or the existing structure.
The "War" I speak of has two fronts - that of the islamofascists and that of the radical left.
Post a Comment
<< Home