An Impromptu Rendition of 'God Bless America!'

I received a phone call from our daughter late tonight. It seems the mother of an old high school friend just passed away, and she wanted me to look in our local newspaper to find out when the funeral is, on the off chance that she might be able to attend. About halfway through our conversation, she mentioned the following, kind of as an afterthought -- which just goes to show how different mothers and daughters can be in their sense of what is important, or of interest, to tell one another. :)

Mandy and her best friend attended a dinner hosted by their undergrad college in Washington, D.C. tonight. After the dinner, they took the Metro back to where they had parked in suburban D.C.

While they were waiting on the Metro platform for their train to arrive, a black man who was waiting across the way for another train was 'preaching' in a very loud and obnoxious voice. All Mandy could make out was the occasional 'blacks oppressed!' ... 'Obama!' ... 'take what is ours!' and the like. Although she didn’t hear all of his harangue, she heard enough to know that he envisioned himself a budding Reverend Wright and was seeking to make the Metro platform into his own personal pulpit.

The platforms were crowded, and people appeared to be somewhat uneasy about what was going on. They simply stared silently at one another, or awkwardly shifted their weight from one foot to the other.

Mandy and her friend have their bachelors and masters degrees in vocal performance, so they decided to use their 'weapon of choice' to confront this self-proclaimed preacher. Mandy whispered quietly to her friend, after which they cleared their throats and began singing in two-part harmony, softly at first, and then crescendo-ing into a vocal fortissimo, the chorus of 'God Bless America!'.

The black 'preacher' boarded his train perhaps ten seconds before the end of their rendition, so he was not there to hear the applause they received. Neither was he there to witness the old Jewish man who was wearing a hat, under which he was also wearing a yarmulke. The elderly man came over to the girls, took off his hat, and placed it on the ground in front of them, thanking them profusely for what they had done.

We all enjoy those special moments in which we take unbridled pride in our children’s accomplishments. I enjoyed one of those moments tonight. :)

It will be interesting to see what shakes out. We have three candidates right now and none of them represent what America is about in the least. The Dems have been promoting class division and warfare for decades and now they are acting it out in a very real way. Even though he doesn't really speak for them directly Obama is leading the majority liberal black constituency in a sort of political revival movement that now has energy whether he wants to feed it or not.

Hillary's avarice will lead her to fight to the last. Which in fairness is not inappropriate for a candidate to do. In her thoroughly corrupt nature she is and will be tainting the contest between them though. That is acting like a bellows on the embers of racial class resentment in the left black community. In turn the rest of the leftist electorate is being agitated by the fear and loathing generated from being so openly exposed as frauds and the resulting reality that they could lose offices and prestige due to internal disunity.

That leaves the Dems with a fractured and embittered base to face a Republican opponent who has single handedly alienated the core constituency of his party and is rather uninspiring to everyone else. His strongest suit, the WoT, is also the issue which is most opposed by the core of the left. That makes the thought of escaping the divisiveness in the Dem party by switching to McCain, leftist as he is on most issues, a very hard pill to swallow for Independents/moderates/soft leftists. Another source of agitation and dissatisfaction.

The cognitive dissonance for voters across the spectrum is a recipe for exacerbated psychosis to emerge in all sorts of alternative avenues of expression other than the political. Within the political mindset the potential for heated neurotic expressions is going to be very high amongst blacks who consider themselves disenfranchised from society and the political structure.

In short, by November almost everybody will be confused, depressed and/or fit to be tied. Obama's increasingly apparent disconnect between his carefully crafted persona and his actual personality is either going to act like a bucket of water on Democrat ambitions or a bucket of gasoline on buried contentions throughout society. Obama's effect on it all will depend a great deal on what his actual personality really is. But above and beyond his influence will be the actions of those who will take advantage of the situation from one direction or another.

More popcorn please!

A superb (if depressing) summary of America in the spring of 2008, and on the precipice of something big – ‘big’ certainly not necessarily indicating ‘good’.

One of the aspects of this election that still concerns me deeply is the continued ignorance and apathy of the electorate. Poll after poll continues to indicate that, although the approval percentages of all three candidates continues to change, the reason for those changes is unclear – because, when asked specific questions about the candidates’ stances, the voters still answer them in sweeping sound-bite generalities.

I believe all FReepers recognize that vigilance, as regards both foreign and domestic enemies, is our most powerful weapon against tyranny (or worse). Our Founders repeated that warning ad infinitum. And yet I still don’t see a Great Awakening occurring in this country, despite all of the conditions you so eloquently describe, which should be serving as a powerful catalyst. Sure there are pockets of BLT believers, and pockets of American patriots, who have become energized by recent revelations about Obama, and the reactions by the other two candidates. But, on the whole, I believe most of the populace is still walking around in a voluntary cloud.

A good friend of mine came into my office today. She is extremely intelligent, but not very interested in the state of the world – two states of mind that one would think are mutually exclusive, but, in knowing Carol, I have sadly come to realize they are not.

I had sent a small handful of friends the link to this story late last night, and she brought it up to me. She loved the story but candidly asked, ‘Who is this Reverend Wright?’ She genuinely did not know. The only vague reference to him that she was aware of was Hillary’s recent comment that he would not be her minister. And yet Carol did not really know who he was, or why Hillary was criticizing him.

I’m afraid that most of us are so used to rubbing shoulders with fellow FReepers, and fellow patriots, that we are unaware of the fact that the huge majority of Americans are still sleeping.

And I believe that fact is illustrated by the ‘massive’ 3 to 5 percentage point drop in the polls that Obama has suffered in recent weeks. Despite the dumbing down of our society by the deterioration of public education, and the massive influx of illegals, I still believe the large majority of our populace does not embrace – in fact would be horrified by -- black liberation theology. So why haven’t Obama’s percentages been cut in half? Simply because most Americans still don’t get it.

The one amazing occurrence that flies in the face of what I am saying is the fact that more than 100,000 Pennsylvania republicans have (presumably temporarily) switched their registration to democrat for the upcoming primary. I assume that unprecedented tactic is an effort to cast a vote against Obama and/or an effort to take the democrat nomination all the way to a contentious convention. It will be interesting to see the result on April 22nd.

Thank you, as always, for your insight and eloquence. I share your fear that this campaign is serving to embolden radical elements in our society. I only hope the patriots on the right become as emboldened as the black power fanatics on the left. If that happens, then perhaps all of this frightening campaign noise will have served as a long-term positive influence on the future of our republic.

Do you want butter on that popcorn? :)

~ joanie
Allegiance and Duty Betrayed

An apathetic and ignorant electorate is truly a disturbing thing. When Ben Franklin warned that we had "a republic if you can keep it" he was probably thinking in that very moment that laziness would more likely be our undoing than cowardice or weakness in the face of an enemy without. I think it is inarguably true that our education system has failed us terribly in history and civics and allowed generations of Americans to lose sight of the principles America was founded on and the blessings and achievements that have flowed directly from them. But I think the media has failed us worse.

A natural inclination to patriotism exists in most nations, even the most despotic, and, in spite of a lack of a formal grounding in civic responsibility, a large percentage of people come to see themselves as part of the nation they live in and want to participate in its direction. However, without accurate, unbiased and broad-based information participation becomes ineffective, misdirected and ultimately frustrating to the point that many lose their trust and their motivation to take part.

Once a threshold of that phenomenon has been crossed the media becomes free to abandon any pretense of being providers of objective information and partners in the process with a defined role as such. I think the MSM has crossed that Rubicon. They have become invaders, not soldiers, and destroyers, not supporters of the republic, in their own self-interests.

In so doing they have gone beyond pandering to the lowest common denominator, dumbing down the populace in the process, and have turned to intentional manipulation for their own entertainment and profit. I don't think they are a tool of any interest but their own. They have become a separate entity unto themselves and as such are a greater threat and a more divisive evil than any external enemy or domestic sedition.

It probably won't be a surprise to you now to say that I despise them. I would hate them if I weren't careful not to lose myself in emotion and destroy what little virtue I have managed to accumulate. But there is my opinion and my explanation for why our country seems to sleep while fires are being set all around.

Since I am not personally acquainted with your friend I can be a little harsher in my assessment of her POV. She may be intellectually capable but I wouldn't call her mindset intelligent. Intelligence to me implies curiosity and a keen awareness with an eye towards survival. My idea of good survival skills encompasses an awareness of the world around us and a desire to act on that awareness for the benefit of self and others in an unselfish way. As unselfish as possible anyway within the limits of one's understanding and capabilities. A sharp intellect bestows a greater share of both.

With that definition in mind, and no thought of criticizing her character, I would not consider your friend intelligent. I would say she is asleep within a closed off self-interest as opposed to either a Randian or philanthropic self-interest. She, in my very limited ability to assess her mindset, is one of the millions alluded to before as self-turned off by an uninformed society fed by a malicious agent of propaganda. In her defense, and that of many others, it sounds like she is sensitive enough to reject the propaganda machine just not curious enough to find the truth they don't provide.

Political junkies, both right and left, live in a world filled with information, both of good and bad quality, that "ordinary" humans are barely aware of. I could go into another very wordy exegesis on why people become political junkies and how the reasons for it differ between lefties and righties. But you were so kind in your compliments of my words a wave of compassion has washed over me so I won't. ;^)

I think the Pennsylvania crossover voting is just an anomaly myself. But therein is an example of how something good can come from the chaos of this year's politicking. The current system of rules for primary voting is a mess. The fear and anger generated by this tit-for-tat crossover tampering with the opposing party's primaries could lead to some postive reforms of those moronic rules that allow it.

Do you want butter on that popcorn? :)

Definitely! Full fat, pasteurized and homogenized butter with salt, thank you!

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