12-7 and 9-11

Vote Republican.net ^ | 12-3-03 | Michael P. Tremoglie

[JohnGalt]

The author seems to suggest that nationalism is synonymous with the 'right' and then suggests that somehow the Right won the the post-30s culture war.

That is about as ahistorical as it gets.

[netmilsmom]

Sorry, I went to public school. Could you please explain further?

[Maelstrom]

Those are both problems since the Left in America has not always been so consistently anti-American as it has since the 60's and the Right lost the culture war and only since 9-11-2001 has begun to join the battle.

Forty years and more of a one-sided battle.

[JohnGalt]

I can add a little more, sure, and note, I did not put in my customary links, but I would be happy to provide further info on any point if I can.

The author claims that the 1930s were the Red Decade and that somehow things magically changed when Pearl Harbor was bombed, at which point, the author suggest using patriotic and the right interchangeably, came back into fashion.

That is ahistorical.

The Right of the 40s and through the mid-50s viewed Pearl Harbor as an act of Deceit by FDR whose administration was filled with Stalinists (Reds in the authors parlance) in an effort to get Japan to attack the United States rather than invade the Soviet Union from the West through Siberia.

The Hollywood of the 1940s was riddled with Communist sympathizers (useful idiots) who happily went to work for Uncle Joe in propagandizing the war effort. Even Frank Capra was investigated by Hoover's FBI for Communist themes in the very popular 'Its A Wonderful Life.' All that really happened was that the goal of the Communists changed and coincided with that of the Democratic party.

I mean, half of Europe was given to Stalin after the efforts of a Communist spy, Alger Hiss, advised the President to do so. The secrets of the bomb were handed over to the Stalinists by the very people hired by the US taxpayers to build it.

After the war, the Right was sold-out in 1948 and forced to back in current parlance, a RINO, Dewey, who supported the socialist New Deal programs. Truman then launched a half-hearted war in Korea where he hamstrung the General MacArthur in fighting to a conclusion.

In 1952, a very anti-New Deal, anti-war, anti-defect, anti-Big Government candidate of the Right Taft was sold out by the Wall Street RINOs for Ike. Ike did take on an anti-Communist Nixon as the VP, but Nixon was not actually a conservative, but simply an anti-Communist who leaned to the Right. Ike did a fairly good job for 8 years of course, but he instated no reforms and when he left office he warned against the "Military Industrial Complex" in his farewell address.

For the next 20 years, the Warren court and leftists in Hollywood attacked every social standard from the West in a search of the egalitarian ideal.

The Republicans and the culture sold out the ancient English custom and concept of Property Rights with the 1963 Civil Rights bill and then pretended to be surprised that it quotas and Nixon's implementation of Affirmative Action caused so much anger. The Warren Court destroyed the last vestiges of the Republic's judicial system with Miranda and the Roe V Wade case that still haunts us.

There was a brief respite in 1980, but Reagan had to take on the RINO of his time, George Bush as a VP, and when Reagan was elected he started appointing Ford and Nixon hold overs rather than the outside "radicals" that got him there. Then the assassination attempt from the son of a George Bush for President contributor---but that is another story.

Reagan did a great job in fixing the welfare state, rebuilding a military that was completely obsolete and lowering taxes for a couple of years until he went back on that in 1983 and raised taxes, but he also had no effect on reducing the size of government. Still, he brought down the Soviet Union with nary a shot and should be remembered in the pantheon of great world leaders and great Americans.

9/11 was the end result of a trillion dollar centralized intelligence agency that could no longer function, like the Old Soviet Union. Rather than dismantle the system and look to solve the problem internally (armed passengers, tighter borders, and firings/pension strippings of government hacks) the central government set off to slay a foreign monster that may or may not have had anything to do with 9/11 and debt financed the whole thing, similar to LBJ's reign.

Meanwhile, gays can now marry, and doctors will have to kill the baby while still in the uterus rather than in the birth canal-- and conservatives call it a victory.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[sergeantdave]

Out in "Fly-Over Country" we've been fighting a rear guard action in the "War Against Rural America" since the early 1990s. We knew it would take awhile for the people in the dense population areas to take notice that there's a war going on. We've been outgunned and outspent by the eco-fascists and their sock pocket media.

The attack on religion, brainwashing in the schools, leftist judges writing law, theft of property via regulation - it's all tied in. Glad the rest of America has finally noticed.

Welcome to the war.

[Protagoras]

Good post.

[JohnGalt]

TY.

I also forgot to add that 2/3rds of the WWII military was drafted compared to only 40% for Viet Nam. One could easily make the case that by the author's judgment the '60s were more, by the authors definition of patriotism, 'patriotic' i.e. loyal to the DC tax regime, than the 40s.

Hence my critique.

[Maelstrom]

Jesus Almighty

You're the last bastion, not a rear guard action that nobody's noticed!

[gcruse]

After Pearl Harbor Americans became more patriotic, more religious, and more democratic after Pearl Harbor. The institutions of American culture were changed. Media, art, music all became more appreciative of American democracy and less appreciative of foreign “utopias.”

I think the author is overreaching here in his attempt to connect 12-7 to 9-11.
We didn't drop the idea of 'utopias' until the war was over.  Uncle Joe was still our ally, after all.  We didn't become steeply anticommunist until the fifties.

[Young Werther]

When you study 19th Century Radical Thought the concept of Progressive or Liberal thought, (Left), is associated with nationalistic aspirations. Progressives wished to do away with the monarchies and looked to the American Revolution as the mechanism to accomplish this change.

That's why it is odd to equate the Right with Nationalism!

[gcruse]

Is the term nationalism, like fascism, so widely used and misused that it doesn't mean anything in the vernacular?

"My country right or wrong" strikes me as nationalism and is a mantra of the right.

[wayoverontheright]

The liberals are becoming increasingly marginalized as more is known about them.

Yes.....Thanks to the Fox News, talk radio, internet..... AXIS OF TRUTH!

As ordinary Americans are learning about who is operating their cultural institutions and as they learn that they have not been told the truth, those institutions will change.

Ohhh....Ohhh...I smell another HISSY FIT, coming soon to an election near us.

[JohnGalt]

It's more of an aesthetics' issue.

Patriotism, love of the land of our fathers, has always been considered a positive trait in Western culture.

Nationalism, a rather arbitrary love of political borders, has always been considered lower and often leads to dangerous outcomes.

For example, the nationalist believes his country is always right, where as a patriot tends to believe in his country, right or wrong, which suggests that his country is capable of being wrong.

As an aside, nice catch with the comment on Utopia's but take it a step further. The War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, the War on Terrorism are all utopian ends that can never actually end.

[Grampa Dave]

Amen Brother Dave! The Watermelon EcoJihadists have been rurally cleansing farmers, ranchers and land owners in the west for the fish for two decades. Finally things are turning around some. We haven't won the war, but the rest of America is starting to see what we have seen for two decades. I'm reposting your timely and on target remarks:

Out in "Fly-Over Country" we've been fighting a rear guard action in the "War Against Rural America" since the early 1990s. We knew it would take awhile for the people in the dense population areas to take notice that there's a war going on. We've been outgunned and outspent by the eco-fascists and their sock pocket media.

The attack on religion, brainwashing in the schools, leftist judges writing law, theft of property via regulation - it's all tied in. Glad the rest of America has finally noticed.

[gcruse]

The "War On" syndrome is, agreed, a utopian tool of the times.
We can't win, we can't break even, and we can't get out of the game.

[Calpernia]

Good read ping

[Calpernia]

Come by and read this one.

[Hill Street Blues]

Galt your comments about the article bespeak a lack of knowledge of history. Your specious all or nothing proposition is quite apparent as well.

Perhaps you missed his comments about the 1930's. In the context of an era in which the United States of America was indeed very close to becoming a communist country - any communist who may have been in government post-Pearl Harbor was of relatively minor concern. In the 1930's the WHOLE government was almost communist.

Do you really think that all communist influence would be expurgated in a few short years ????

And indeed considering what was done - quite appropriately to communists in the post WWII era - how can you even suggest there was no change? This is absurd.
Was there a HUAC investigating communists in the 1930's as there was in post WWII?

Tremoglie then suggests that Viet Nam changed this patriotic anti-communist fervor. It did. Communist ideology and conspiracy theories were much more palatable because of Viet Nam. Read David Horowitz.

You are making specious arguments born of a misreading of the material.