Posted on 05/06/2021 4:42:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
I spent late Saturday afternoon in what has become, for me, a rite of spring. I watched the Kentucky Derby. I am no afficionado of horse racing and will not betray my ignorance of the sport's desiderata in this column. At most, I watch three horse races a year. After the Kentucky Derby, I watch the remainder of the races hoping to round off the Triple Crown. The Derby is a spectacle, from the enormously beautiful thoroughbreds to the women's glamorous hats. It is like the World Series and the Super Bowl; all are a piece of American culture.
I know the Derby is under siege. For that matter, so is the World Series and the Super Bowl. On the other hand, find me an area of American culture that is not under siege. There are people out there who want to force their politics on us, and they use the prestige events of our culture to do it. Take a knee; carry a protest sign; lie down on the track -- all for a noble cause. Balderdash!
About the only prestige event that has overcome the political fanatics is the Masters golf tournament, which, by the way, is also a spectacle of great beauty. Drive that little white ball down the fairway. Shove it into the cup. A colorful crowd of spectators is watching. The Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, is beautiful in the springtime, too. A decade ago, this piece of American culture was also in danger of being politicized, but somehow it escaped the demonstrators' wrath. Perhaps we could prevail on the club's leaders to write a book about how the Masters Tournament went from being a gathering of political pariahs to reverting to its former dignity of being a stylish spring sporting event.
America is in danger of being divided into two cultures. One will be free of political sloganeering and cant. It will remain true to its original purpose of putting on a first-rate sports event or a cultural event or exposition. The other will go the way of the Academy Awards or, for that matter, Major League Baseball or the National Basketball Association. I almost feel sorry for Oscar night. It once had real stars and real dramas to celebrate. Now, well, did the Soviet Union ever offer awards for film? It had Pravda, whose journalism closely approximated CNN and The New York Times. How about little statues of Lenin for the American films and the actors who most slavishly followed the Communist Party line? I believe the comrades did offer the Lenin Peace Prize for humanitarian endeavors from a Marxist-Leninist point of view. They should have offered the Lenin Peace Prize for film. I will bet you by now, if the Soviet Union were still standing, our Hollywoodians would be annually flying to Moscow to get a little Lenin to put on their mantels back in Malibu.
Political scientists tell us that they see increasing segregation in the way Americans live. It is not racial segregation but political segregation. The coasts, particularly the Pacific and the northeast Atlantic coast, are left-wing. The rest of the country is pretty much right-wing to centrist. People divided along these lines also live different lives. My guess is that left-wingers increasingly follow the culture of forward-lookers: marijuana, rock music and rap music, bird-watching, video games. I hope I am not diminishing their culture. The right-wingers settle on the old standbys: booze, country music and the American songbook, outdoor pastimes of the National Rifle Association, old movies. Surely, I have not diminished the right, have I? Well, my knowledge of both cultures might be a little shaky, but you get my drift. Americans increasingly self-segregate and gravitate toward different cultural values. Think back to last weekend's Derby. Surely, you did not see Sen. Elizabeth Warren wearing one of those flamboyant bonnets.
My guess is that this segregation is going to get worse before it has a hope of getting better. My mind goes back to 15 years ago. I was having a talk with one of the wisest confidants I know, Jim Piereson. Jim has been in the philanthropy business for years, following his career of teaching political science. Fifteen years ago, Jim startled me by predicting that America was going to become more politically polarized, and he spoke of the possibility of civil war. He made no prediction, but he let his proposition dangle before us. I still see it dangling before me. Had Jim become a prophet?
I like bird watching and I listen to country music while enjoying a good alcoholic beverage.
There’s Normals and there’s Not Normals.
Fun Kentucky Derby fact: the horse that was runner up to Secretariat in 1973, Sham, is the second fastest horse in Derby history.
I believe our uncivil political division is created and exacerbated by - and falls primarily at the feet of these institutions:
- Network/cable News
- Education System
- Hollywood/TV Series.
The anti-Christian anti-American people who control these institutions are responsible for the dangerous political climate that we have today.
The question I ask myself is why haven't Christian and pro-American people been able to take control of the previously mentioned institutions?
[he might have continued] but don't think my insouciance obscures my ogling in flagrante delicto of the tres chic haberdashery de femme at said equine événement.
Old Emmett Tyrrell is still embarrassed that he went to Indiana University and not Princeton.;-)
Fun Kentucky Derby fact: the horse that was runner up to Secretariat in 1973, Sham, is the second fastest horse in Derby history.
Guess it’s time for me to watch Secretariat win he Belmont. Always do that about this time of the year. You can make a good case that race is the greatest moment in sports history.
Then, on the Right there are two group; the lockstep "conservatives" who unquestioningly accept and parrot the bullshit emanating from the Republican Party. They're as uninformed and as disinterested in truth and reality as the leftwing "useful idiots." Rounding things out we have a fourth group - informed Americans who believe in the Constitution and in the God given rights of Life, Liberty and the right to live one's life as one sees fit to.
Out of all four groups, they are the most well informed, logical and realistic.
On another section of this article, what the hell does enjoying rock music have to do with a predilection towards being a leftwinger? Stupid assumption. Based on that silly assumption I guess Ted Nugent is a raging lefty, as am I.
Like the author I too no zero about Horses but think them beautiful creatures and especially the thoroughbreds. I also look forward to these races so I can see the best of the best.
The question I ask myself is why haven’t Christian and pro-American people been able to take control of the previously mentioned institutions?
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I have an answer that I think is correct...unpleasant but correct. The number of Christians and Pro-American nationalists are a distinct minority in the land. The political Left owns metropolitan areas with huge numbers of recent immigrants who are just not as invested in the traditional view of America. Many of them are really not nationalists in any strong sense (having left some other nation to come here.). They are concerned with one thing only, namely their material well-being and that of their immediate family. Some of these immigrant’s children will be used as fodder for the military to spread Cosmopolitan values and Corporatism around the globe (much like our own children are now). I just listened to Hugh Hewitt for a bit on my way to work today. I’m afraid he’s the kind of Republicanism that conservatives might drift back to post-Trump. Stock Markets, Sports (bread and circus), and Interventionist Foreign Policy are basically all he talks about when he isn’t kissing Beltway ass. That’s where Conservatism is headed if the GOPe win out.
Should you include social media?
Google’s control over search results?
I take offense to the rock music comment. In fact, I bet classic rock fans from the 70s and 80s make up the bulk of Trump’s base!
I love watching that race. It is an amazing sporting moment.
Visit and tour Churchill Downs sometime, it’s quite interesting place.
It’s also quite an eye-opener as to the ability of media to control and present exactly what they want to the public, no matter the conditions on the ground.
Noticed while walking there that all the classic television shots you see are tightly framed and controlled, because everywhere else was old and decrepit. The whole place looked like it had been airlifted into a slummy neighborhood as well.
Chatting with a local, they mentioned how all the glitterati show up on race day, just out just in time to get their photo opps and go watch the race, and then run like hell for their limos back to the airport.
We're already there from what I can see.
And, I cannot live with or be around the "other" culture which I am diametrically opposed to.
A complete separation is the only answer.
I don’t think that Old Emmett Tyrrell is embarrassed that he swam for Doc Councilman at IU rather than splashing in a kiddie pool in the Ivy League.
Dat’s true. But his use of the language has always been on the pretentious side.
It was everything I could do not to scream at my car radio.
They are coming here to parasite off of what we have created and earned by joining all 93 welfare programs, use our 1st-world medical care system for free and educate their kids in our schools (for free again) - all of which the Democrats gleefully enroll them. IOW, they are bettering their lives off of our achievements, a system to which they did not and will not have to contribute.
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