Posted on 11/20/2012 3:00:28 PM PST by mojito
The sense of living in an occupied country has been growing on me for several decades now. I live in Canada, and am thus “a voice from America’s crazy attic” (Robertson Davies’ phrase, somewhat extended). I was born into a different kind of country. Yet all my life I have been watching the transformation, watching the politicians at work, watching the incremental social fallout, without fully grasping the extent.
[....]
I wonder how many Americans, on the morning of November 7th, got up feeling something terrible had happened. From a number of my Republican friends, I got this impression. It wasn’t the same as 2008, when they got up feeling they’d lost the election.
It was instead a feeling of being surrounded by people who don’t get the point, who didn’t grasp the stakes, who let something pass. The people had now voted explicitly to go over the “fiscal cliff,” to accept ObamaCare as a new way of life, with the destruction of Catholic institutions, etc.
And there’d be no going back. America was the last place on Earth where the people did not accept being pushed around, being changed by social engineering. They’d taken pride in this.
But now America is an occupied country.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecatholicthing.org ...
I now know that it was like to live in Occupied France. I almost feel like forming some kind of resistance—passive at least—to counter the daily propaganda that berates us with lies and half-truths. The day may come when we will need to church services in our homes.
I believe most Republicans are still in search of the immortal Ronald Reagan and have yet to find him. Two million fewer voters voted for Romney than McCain. My general feeling was that a quarter of all Republicans just never got excited about McCain or Romney. As for the independent voter....neither offered something of substance.
So we stand...mostly all strangers in a strange land, and waiting for something of substance.
Few Republicans walk the walk, sadly....I think Walker is one of those few.
My God have you nailed it !! Why can’t we get a great communicator, with a great story and bio ?? like Reagan ??
I was watching a show on the Dust Bowl last night, and man, while I disagree with FDR and the changes he brought about, man... could that guy communicate !!! They played several speeches of his, when he was doing train stops.. he was personable, and he connected !!
I’m still waiting for Reagan...
In occupied France, homes were taken from owners without compensation, & troops were forcefully billeted in private homes.
Now, we don't have much need for housing soldiers, but homeless pedophiles, thieves, ex-cons, illegals, & drunks need a place to stay, perhaps in your or my spare bedroom.
I wonder how it’s different than how die-hard Republicans felt during the Roosevelt years, especially after he won his third term.
Thanks for introducing me to this fine writer. I have a feeling I will be reading all of what he writes.
bfl
FDR could indeed communicate, especially since in his case, as with current CIC, he had a compliant press.
They believed, then as now, in the progressive cause. The progressive media hid from the public Wilson’s invalidity, Roosevelt’s polio, and JFK’s addiction to pain meds as well as both of the latter’s infidelities.
The nation, then as now, was searching for a leader. Instead what was offered and accepted was a “Daddy” or, at minimum, an “Uncle Sugar”. “Things will be okay darlin’, here’s a few bucks, come back when that runs out.”
Reagan’s message, at least to me, was totally different. There was no guarantee, but there was promise - not of success - but of opportunity. It is your responsibility.
That, unfortunately, has not sold with Democrats since FDR “saved” the country from those evil capitalists.
The South has been chained and occupied to this empire for 150 years. We’ve felt this for a long time. Watching the North East establishment taking us further and further away from the republic.
In prospect, their strategy is, having failed with one snake oil, to try another kind; to lose, but more dramatically & shamefully; & leave anyone who resembles a conservative as a stranger in a strange land.
Well said.
I’m glad we at least still have a lot of remnants from when America was such an incomparable beacon of freedom, individuality and sheer guts. Books, photos, old movies, etc. I love to tap into all that miscellanea. Such a stark contrast to what a pathetic, whipped nation of serfs America has become. Obama has provided us the ultimate symbol of decline and decay. A proper figure for a new generation that cares more about sexting pictures of their genitals to each other than fighting for their freedoms.
“how many Americans, on the morning of November 7th, got up feeling something terrible had happened.”
It was the hang in my hangover and the rudeness in my awakening.
Will the advice be heeded? I doubt it. Pandering seems the order of the day. Memo to the GOP: You can't out-pander the party that invented pandering.
Don't blame the voters. Blame Romney for failing to close the deal with the millions who stayed home, or who gave Obama another shot.
As a Freeper, you're in the upper tenth of the patriotic right in this country, and are far more well-informed than the vast majority of our citizens. Your less-well-informed brethren needed to be inspired by a candidate who spoke conservatism as their first language. Someone who could make the case for conservative solutions with ease, because they personally own those ideals in their heart and mind.
Instead, the voters got a guy who's only marginally fluent in that tongue, and who missed every opportunity to show the people how ours and the Founders' way is better for America.
Romney may believe in all of those things, but like all RINOs, he's bought into the 'kinder, gentler, more inclusive and understanding' brand of Republicanism. The man has internal conflicts which kept him from being the crusading conservative warrior we needed this time around.
that we are now complete foreigners in this North American culture, as throughout the post-modern West; that we are Gershom, strangers in a strange land; that we are mustard seeds again.
A phrase keeps repeating itself to me, and I keep repeating it in various contexts. We have to build, again, the culture we want to live in.
In many ways western civ is the ship Christianity produced, but once you've lost your compass you drift toward the rocks. If the culture itself is your point of reference you won't even notice you're headed toward catastrophe.
We have to be prepared to build anew. We have to get our direction from the compass and not the culture. If we at least are clear where we are going, others will coalesce around us especially as the bottom falls out from under them.
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