FREEDOM – Thx to The Greatest Generation for Preserving It
July 17, 2004
To Sherry and all my family,
After reading Sherry’s post on Judge Young’s sentencing statement to the “shoe bomber,” it gave me a moment to reflect on the freedoms we do have as Americans. It also reminded me to say thanks to all of you, “The Greatest Generation.” You endured the horrors of evil of the 20th Century. It was your self-sacrifices, sense of purpose, and perseverance that preserved the freedoms we enjoy today. We of the generations that followed often take these freedoms for granted and fail to give you the thanks you deserve. We have not been personally challenged as you were by the threat of global evil. The Cold War while threatening was abstract and distant.
The whiners and snivelers of our generations must appear as ungracious wimps and whooshes. Yes, we are a spoiled and complacent lot and forget the precious gift you gave us. We have not experienced the pain and hardships you lived through. WWII was already past history to be read in our schoolbooks. WWII has no collective visceral memory for us. We have no first hand experience. You did not dwell on it and shielded us from its impact. You didn’t consider yourselves as heroes. You picked up and got on with life. While the Vietnam War is still fresh in our memories some thirty years later, WWII ended less than a decade before we were born and has less of an impact. Our collective memory only is of grainy film clips and those few first-hand stories you told us on rare occasion.
We demand instant gratification, super-human perfection, are quick to find fault and lay blame instead of solutions, and will equivocate on all things to achieve these ends. We too, of course, want it done by yesterday. And yes, if you please, it must be done in an antiseptic and politically correct manner, lest we offend anyone or give us queasy stomachs. Yes, we often stand for nothing and everything at once. We are unlike your generation who understood the difference between, RIGHT and WRONG, and GOOD and EVIL. You lived by these principles day by day. You are not swayed by situational ethics. You stood firm and resolute in what you held dear and believed in.
As President Bush said, we are again facing a new struggle of GOOD verses EVIL. Our very way of life and culture is threatened by the spread of radical Islamic extremism. The world’s equivocation on this new cancer has only emboldened our enemy in their religious zeal to kill or convert every one of us. Radical Islamic extremism is no enlightened religion, as we know it. Radical Islamic extremism as some call Islamofascism, is an ideology that favors, dictatorial government, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism all rolled up into a theocracy. The priest, clerics, and seers of this movement have found in their own interpretations of the Koran, justification for their actions and the slaughter of innocents. Their quest is to “open up” other unbelieving lands to the enlightenment of Islam and to right the right wrongs they suffered of centuries past. In other words to conquer and impose Islamic theocracies. This extremism is a religious-like cult, a failed culture, and a false religion that is still locked in time in the 12th and 13th Centuries.
I would like to share with two excellent essays which provide insight into this new struggle. The first is by Victor Davis Hanson, “History’s Verdict,” that compares your time with ours. And the second by Rob Foot, “The New Anti-Semitism?”
The world will soon learn it owes a great debt of gratitude to the United States, its allies, and the American people who have yet again intervened to preserve the world order and freedom. A nuclear conspiracy that existed is just now unfolding. John Loftus, a former federal prosecutor of Nazi crimes and a nuclear intelligence expert, is alleging Iraq and Libya with the aid of North Korea came dangerously close to having a nuclear device. Dr. A. Q. Kahn of Pakistan who enabled the Islamofascists to develop nuclear capabilities facilitated this. This occurred secretly without the oversight and knowledge of the UN and the IAEA. The strategic consequences of a nuclear device in the hands of Islamofascists are unimaginable.
Had it not been for President Bush, the American Military, and the coalition, calling Saddam Hussein’s bluff, it may have been already too late. It’s my belief GOOD would have eventually triumphed over evil, but at great cost and loss of life, in a post nuclear world. I would recommend you treat yourself to a movie and see Spiderman II, as there are many metaphorical references to our current situation. Don’t waste your money on Michael Moore’s “Infotainment” documentary that is riddled with misperceptions and outright lies. But why do other people hate Americans so much?
Rob Foot in his essay sees the rise in anti-Americanism as a new form of virulent anti-Semitism. We are the new scapegoats, just as the Jews have been through out the centuries. Now that socialism (communism) has collapsed as a failed utopian ideology, the liberal left has lost direction. Given media outlets are somewhat left of center, I’m sure you have noticed the media has slip into providing, “Infotainment,” and seldom provides useful reasoned articles and programming. I hope this is not a true reflection of the American people but one of business necessity of the media conglomerates. They pander to the dark side of human curiosity with blood and gore to attract audiences. This is done for much needed ratings and circulation to generate profit – hence, “if it bleeds, it leads.” This sensationalizes and distorts the events of the day out of proportion and without perspective.
Our media may no longer be a relevant provider of information. A new communication medium is now emerging. People are interconnecting via The Net, blog sites, and email just as this letter. News of events, ideas, and thoughts are freely flowing, unimpaired by political boundaries, or constraints and biases of the editorial and corporate boardrooms. This new collective medium has little overhead and has less need to generate a profit. It attracts audiences on value of the content. There is an inherent self-righting ability that limits extremes of thought and flawed group think.
The media has failed us, in its duty to inform and educate the American people, with its shallow infotainment coverage of the War On Terror. The people need creditable reporting, so we can make intelligent decisions in the upcoming presidential election. Some in the media believe the American people are too stupid to understand the complexities of the day’s stories. There is little drive or reward for excellence in reporting that is driven by a sense of duty and responsibility. The media has drifted into pandering for audiences and avoids hard stories. Hard news stories require a lot of time, effort, and resources. Hard news coverage requires a commitment to educate the people, report the facts without editorializing and sensationalizing, provide details as to the credibility of its sources, and then let the people from the story, form and draw their own opinions and conclusions I would strongly caution information providers and their media conglomerates never to underestimate the intelligence and creativity of the American people.
The paradigm is now beginning to shift. These are the [hard news] stories the American public deserves to hear and not the petty barbs and retorts of the presidential election. The news media has abdicated its role and journalistic responsibility given it by the 1st Amendment. The news media as we know it may no longer be relevant as the provider of our news. Our cherished 1st Amendment right should not be twisted to justify the interests of media conglomerates. This is a right given by a free people to the press as a fundamental check on the abuse of power by those who WE CHOOSE to govern. With a strong and unbiased free press we will not suffer the tyranny of fanatics who rule by fear, torture, genocide, deceit, and perversion of culture and religion to remain in power, like the people of Iraq we have just liberated. Once the “truth” is told, the power of the “great lie” to control evaporates. There no longer can be without the world’s knowledge, “The Final Solution.”
Islamofascisim is a great danger facing the world. It is time our generations, suck it up and realize what is at stake here. It’s time to put aside our café lattés and cafe mochas, and realize America is at war. This is not another Vietnam. We must win this war. Loosing is not an option. Our Country was deliberately attacked without provocation by Islamofascisim terrorists. The great oceans no longer provide us safe haven from the “crazies” of the world. The “over there,” is now “here” in our homeland. Many innocent lives were lost, for who we are, for what we believe, and for what we stand, whether under God or not – FREEDOM! We must be resolute and decisive. As President Bush so correctly said, we are a tolerant people but once aroused, we are a fierce adversary.
We can no longer bury our heads in the sands, as this cancer will continue to grow if we don’t swiftly excise it. We must shake ourselves from our comfortable complacency, become actively involved, and quit Monday morning quarterbacking and support our valiant troops who are defending our freedom. The media needs to report objectively. The true foreign correspondents of this war are those brave soles that report (blog) from their neighborhoods from within these repressive regimes. The media need to quit rooting for the enemy as if they were the underdogs in some Sunday football game. This only emboldens our enemy and puts our military at further risk. Call the murdering SOBs for what they really are and not the rebels, insurgents, freedom fighters and other creative non-pejorative words. The media needs to bring the intense light of the free world on these repressive regimes that will implode under its scrutiny.
As Victor Hansen says in all wars, mistakes will be made, intelligence is not an exact art, decisive actions must be taken on partial information, battle plans will not be executed perfectly, and hindsight is always 20/20. As President Bush said, “We must stay the course,” and as Victor Hansen says leave the critiques until after the war is won. This war is not over by any stretch. There are still many battles to be won. Iran is on the verge of having nuclear capability. Pakistan that has nuclear weapons thanks to Dr. Kahn is now faced with a rising tide of Islamofascisim that could gain control of these weapons.
This war will not be won on the battlefield alone. We must unite both left and right to crush this new enemy that seeks to destroy us. The support of a united America and the free world is critical. There can be no appeasement for fanatical tyrants, who rule by fear, torture, genocide, deceit, and perversion of culture and religion to remain in power. Islamofascism must be crushed as a failed ideology lest its charismatic leaders continue to draw new recruits with the BIG LIES. The free world will no longer tolerate, “Final Solutions.” This is a war of ideology and culture, the free will of men, and GOOD vs. EVIL.
This is a message all American people must hear. Please feel to share this message with all who will listen.