Now.
Okay, but what has that to do with the article?
Posted on 01/30/2013 4:42:11 AM PST by IbJensen
When, in the 1950s, Nikita Khrushchev said, "We will bury you," and, "Your children will live under communism," Eisenhower's America scoffed. By 1980, however, the tide did indeed seem to be with the East.
America had suffered a decade of defeats. Southeast Asia had fallen. The ayatollah had seized power in Iran. Moscow had occupied Afghanistan. Cuban troops were in Ethiopia and Angola. Grenada and Nicaragua had fallen to the Soviet bloc. Eurocommunism was all the rage on the continent.
Just a decade later, the world turned upside-down. The Berlin Wall fell. Eastern Europe was suddenly free. The Soviet Union disintegrated. China abandoned Maoism for state capitalism.
Now, 20 years on, the wheel has turned again — toward darkness.
No longer do we hear chatter about "The End of History" and triumph of democratic capitalism, of America imposing her "global hegemony" or leading mankind into "a second American century."
The hubris is gone, and triumphalism has given way to anxiety, apprehension, alarm.
In an essay, "The Return of Toxic Nationalism," Robert Kaplan, a geopolitical analyst for Stratfor, writes that Western elites are even yet failing to see the larger, darker picture of our evolving world.
These elites identify with the like-minded in other lands and "prefer not to see the regressive and exclusivist forces ... that are mightily reshaping the future."
Egypt and the Mideast offer "a panorama of sectarianism and religious and ethnic divides. Freedom, at least in its initial stages, unleashes not only individual identity but, more crucially, the freedom to identify with a blood-based solidarity group. Beyond that group, feelings of love and humanity do not apply."
This is "a signal lesson of the Arab Spring," and out of it will likely come an "Islamist-Nasserite regime" in Cairo.
"Asia is in the midst of a feverish arms race," writes Kaplan. Nationalism there is "young and vibrant — as it was in the West in the 19th and 20th centuries." Having consolidated the homeland, China is moving to annex her adjacent seas, and a formerly pacifist Japan is "rediscovering nationalism as a default option."
Nationalism is "alive and thriving in India and Russia," with New Delhi building armed forces that will be among the world's largest.
"Race hatred against Muslims is high among Russians, and just as there are large rallies by civil-society types, there are also marches and protests by skinheads and neo-Nazis, who are less well-covered by Western media."
A weakening European Union has spawned a "resurgence of nationalism and extremism in ... Hungary, Finland, Ukraine and Greece."
"We are truly in a battle between two epic forces," says Kaplan, "those of integration based on civil society and human rights, and those of exclusion based on race, blood and radicalized religion."
How should the United States deal with this darkening age?
"Because values like minority rights are under attack the world over, the United States must put them right alongside its own exclusivist national interests, such as preserving a favorable balance of power. Without universal values in our foreign policy, we have no identity as a nation — and that is the only way we can lead with moral legitimacy in an increasingly disordered world."
But is this not itself utopian?
A great religious awakening is taking place from Morocco to Mindanao. If these hundreds of millions believe there is no God but Allah and he has shown the way to eternal life, why would they, why should they, tolerate pastors and preachers from heretical and false faiths?
How do we preach women's equality — an easy access to divorce, contraception and abortion — to people who swear by a sacred book that says you kill people like that?
How do we preach the blessings of racial and ethnic diversity to a world where, as Kaplan writes, ethnonationalism and tribalism are being embraced and people are willing to die to create nations where their own kind and their own culture are dominant if not exclusive?
Before we put our "values" up there with our vital interests, as the object of our foreign policy, what exactly are we talking about?
Do Americans in the grip of a social-moral-cultural war even agree among themselves on "values"?
Our First Amendment protects freedom of speech to call the Prophet vile names. Our freedom of the press protects pornography. Our freedom of religion means all religions are to be equally excluded from public schools.
Other nations believe in indoctrinating their children in their own beliefs and values. Where do we get the right to push ours in their societies?
When did the internal affairs of foreign nations become the portfolio of American diplomats? Did James Madison's first minister to Russia, John Quincy Adams, demand that Czar Alexander free the serfs?
"Without universal values in our foreign policy, we have no identity as a nation," says Kaplan.
But that is not our history. America has indeed been about ideas, but America is now and has always been about more, much more than abstract ideas.
Yes, the Oppressives want to take away our right of self-defense as well as control everyone’s life – the antithesis of liberty that they supposedly support.
But unlike Europe and its mentality of servitude to latest government edicts, we have a mentality of freedom.
We’re not going to let the oppressives control freedom of speech (and if you don’t think that’s in the cards, you haven’t been paying attention). The will not be able to abide the truth when it attacks the foundation of LIES on which the oppressive have built their agenda.
We’re not going to register our guns and let the oppressives incrementally destroy the 2nd amendment and the rest of the Constitution. Edicting the registration of firearms nationwide tells the central socialist government where to park their stake trucks in order to load up us subversives.
Consider that even the now defunct Progressive Soviet Union couldn't repress freedom forever – and they were already subjugated.
Do the Oppressives really think they can pull off the same thing here?
I believe America needs to stop exporting our jobs, and grow America again.
Now.
bttt your response
So a woman is only equal if she can abandon her husband, screw around like a slut and murder her babies? He has a warped view of women's equality.
Personally I believe that nationalism is a force for good. We should be fighting to advance our nation and defeat the others. After all, it all comes down to survival. Our children should end up as rulers of the world, not as slaves to it.
Nationalism is good. Especially in these dark days at present and ahead of us.
Being a right-wing Conservative, Tea Party, Heritage Foundation and Oath Keepers member, I believe it is long past time to take a stand and tell this central socialist regime to go to hell!
You're absolutely correct, but how many 10's of millions of people needed to die, first?
I'd argue that - assuming something along the same lines happens here in the US - it would be much, much bloodier for the simple fact that far fewer people are self-sufficient.
How about an “identity” along the lines of: the country that doesn’t try to run the world anymore, preaching the “universal value” of: everyone mind their own beeswax.
I can understand the argument for contraception and abortion, even though those are as much a blessing for the male. But what is the argument fir easy divorce as equalizing sexes? Maybe back when women were sold into marriage, when they had no choice, when they couldn’t vote or own property and were basically property. But easy divorce doesn’t mean all those things, and historically comes after marriage becomes a sort of contract between equals.
My point is: aren’t men vastly more likely to abandon wives, especially ones with kids? Certainly more than whatever it is this argument has in mind. Desperate housewives looking for sexual satisfaction, or maybe poor, abused women looking for a way out. No, easy divorce I’d say is more for the man.
Our Constitution is most important to our well being. We must demand it be followed and not continue to be weakened.
But .... what has been most harmful is that our nation for 40 years plus has been run by politicians, banks, corporations that have big time conflicts of interest with other entities. They have one foot in the USA and another elsewhere. You can’t run a company or country like that. The pols want reelected and campaign money more than doing what is most righteous and appropriate for the USA.
Amnesty for illegals is one big example and pols from both sides along with the “USA” Chamber of Commerce are jumping through hoops to implement it for votes and short term profits. It is USA in name only, not priorities.
I anticipate the US being a big player in this “darkening age”. After butting their head against a wall of opposition on things like gun control, I expect the American left will, in the midst of another “crisis”, attempt to co-opt religion (with cooperation from popular Christian denominations) in an effort to attract a significant portion of the religious right. They will then steamroll a big government + big religion “solution” on the entire world. Government mandated morality will be one of the last acts on this world’s stage.
Now.
Okay, but what has that to do with the article?
Dude, I’ll never forget when 30 or so years ago, an Argentinian somebody, I don’t remember who, a professor, politician, or intellectual, was a guest on William F. Buckley’s PBS TV Show “The Firing Line”, and warned that America was going the way of Argentina. William F., leaning back in his chair, as he always did leaving you wondering why he won’t fall backwards, and hoping that someday he will to general amusement, and using a language that you barely understood, politely dismissed the man’s warning. Fast forward.
That's because America stood against Communism then. There was reason to scoff.
But red dupes in the media said that the threat from members of Communist Party USA meant us no harm, were not in league with agents of the KGB, that the whole arms race and opposition to Communist imperialism was blind hysteria to an ideology that only want to see all peoples equal.
The House Committee On Un-American Activities (which began investigations in the 1930s) ended in the 1960s (and was improperly tied to "McCarthyism" which is a label that was applied to "witchhunts" that had already been characterized as such by Commie playwrights BEFORE McCarthy entered the picture).
America let her guard down. Pushed God and morals out of the schools and let seditious Commie professors take over academia, "progressive" Red sympathizers take over journalism, and true believer Socialists take over the Democrat party.
There is treachery afoot.
There is treachery afoot.
Treachery afoot, indeed.
People in talk radio acknowledge the deceitful nature of the media these days. There is likewise acknowledgement of the 40+ year bias of academia.
Yet there is belief among talking heads that if we “just coordinate our message as the liberals did” we would be able to be as strong politically as the DNC has become.
You need to INFORM the populace (that derives its news perspective from The Daily Show and similar junk food sources of nourishment). The same populace that has been indoctrinated for 15 years of schooling to swallow liberalism.
Conservatives, by our very nature, don't like being told what to do, how to do it, when, etc. We're self responsible. Since we don't take *orders* well, it's more difficult for us to organize. Kinda like herding cats.
There are also activists (socialist, anarchist, islamist, atheist) around the world assisting Democrat “get out the vote” efforts, Youtube commercial campaigns (Moveon.org sponsored one that was getting top submissions by Dutch advertising firms), online petitions, yahoo/NYTimes/etc comments, etc.
WHO in any other country gives ANY support to American conservatism or the Constitution?
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