Approaching America's 250th Birthday

Now that July 4th of our nation's 250th has come and gone, I thought about what I saw, didn't see, what I heard, didn't hear, and where it all came from.  I know that all was not unified happiness in 1976, but it's impossible not to see that things were wildly different this time around.  For the purpose of space and time, I'd say there were about five different trends I noticed when it came to people and our big semiquincentennial (I think that's the right word).     

Conservative commentators, bloggers, and various outlets   

Overall positive, but not afraid of looking  at things like Jefferson's words and his slaves.  Not through the lens of Presentism of course, but to understand the human condition and, to be honest, to use it to look at ourselves.  This included not just non-religious conservatives, but Christian, Catholic, even non-Christian religious.  Which, in the end, shouldn't be surprising.  

Businesses large and small

Two approaches.  Either overwhelmingly positive hurray for the Red, White and Blue, or just didn't mention it.  The majority gave shout outs however.  Especially as Independence Day approached.  That included various outlets or companies I follow in other parts of the world, giving shout outs to their 'American Fans' or 'American Customers.'  Again, I saw none that mentioned the day or celebration doing so in a negative light.  I'll assume those that mentioned nothing were smart enough to follow the Thumper Rule.  Though I'll also add that those businesses whose products aim at a younger, more postmodern and progressive audiences and services also tended to be rather quiet about the whole ordeal, or at least based on what I saw.  I should mention the same goes for educational outlets. I realize that in most cases, schools are out. But still, it didn't keep them for chiming in over George Floyd that summer. 

MSM Press Outlets

A mixed bag. Generally as the holiday approached, it became more of 'positive things and gatherings and a time to celebrate.'  Earlier on they treated us to the potpourri approach of 'America but its sins!' Especially America and Trump, Trump, Trump and his finagling here, there and everywhere.  Closer to the holiday, most contented themselves with the positives.  On our local stations there have been series of stories about the 250th and our history, which I'd say have been about 40/60.  That is, 40% of the stories have been something in the past positive or at least neutral (one recent story about the Wright Bothers and American invention).  But about 60% are either focused on the sins of the past, or wrap up the accomplishments with those sins.  Just like my sons said the schools did when they were in public school. 

Leftwing outlets and organizations and such.

These would be outlets like the New Yorker or SPLC or other leftwing venues and sites.  Easy. Almost 100% negative, focused on the sins, condemning the vile sinners of the past in this 400 year old racist Nazi state.  The odd nod to something good about America, but wrapped almost exclusively in the bad. And usually only if the good involved some liberal ideal or 'minority' group or something similar. And even then, that was the radical exception to the rule of simply 'Evil America - Never Forget'.  Clearly in these cases the mantra was 'not God bless America, but God d**m America!'.  

Leftwing Christians.

I actually spent time going around to various leftwing believers - Catholic and otherwise - I've known over the years.  I wasn't able to track some down.  Some I haven't bothered with for a long time.  But I tried.  Some outlets, like Where Peter Is, I took as a whole and didn't follow each contributor.  With others individuals I looked to see what they said.  Oddly, the bulk said nothing at all.  As if it was just a Saturday in the park with no mention of the 4th of July.  One focused on the Feast of St. Thomas.  Others just generic posts about nothing.  Some nothing at all, the entire weekend going by with nothing written.  Which I found interesting.  No trashing and hashing like the leftwing orgs.  Just nothing but blanks and silence.  And some of them I know full well would once have posted glowing praises for the US, or are not adverse to remembering the anniversary of something like Selma, or are inclined the send shoutouts to Juneteenth.  Yet silence here. 

And that was that.  It's noteworthy that while Corporate America seems to have split from the leftwing juggernaut of a few years ago, most of the traditional leftwing outlets are still that.  So even if the bulk of Americans were waving flags and singing God Bless America, unlike Columbus's Red, White and Boom this year, the key industries of information and cultural molding in our country still appear to have the country in the crosshairs.  

An armchair quarterback generation

Captain Hunnicutt.  Note the red suspenders

I can't find a video of it.  Appearing in the final season (which some call MASH's Repentance Tour), the episode  I'll be referring to has a two-fold story line.  One, a light hearted story, is how a false rumor that Marilyn Monroe will visit the 4077th MASH gets out of hand.  

The other storyline, much more serious, involves BJ Hunnicutt.  His character was a replacement for the character Trapper John when actor Wayne Rogers left the show.  Over the course of the series, BJ changed from a light hearted, witty, family friendly companion of  Alan Alda's Hawkeye Pierce, to a more dour, cynical and at times caustic character.   

In this episode, he and a chopper pilot abscond with a helicopter to find the best fishing in the area.  On the way, they see a hapless American soldier on the ground, being set upon by the enemy.  They try to go down to rescue him, but the enemy is near.  BJ insists they try again, so they fly low and throw him a rope.  The soldier grabs it and begins to climb.  Just then, gunfire rings out and hits the helicopter.  The pilot yells to cut the rope, they're hit, the engine is damaged, and the soldier is too heavy.  Being a doctor back then and sworn to protect life, BJ objects, but has to cut it, watching in horror as the young solder plunges back down into the enemy surrounded countryside. 

Through the rest of the episode, intermixed with the lighter Monroe storyline, BJ frantically calls and searches everywhere to find out what might have happened to the solider in question.  He calls aid stations, evac hospitals, other MASH units.  He even travels to one when he is told a patient there matches the description, only to be shattered when he finds out it isn't him.  To make matters worse, he finds out he has been nominated for a medal for what he is torn up about doing. 

Toward the end of the episode, Hawkeye tries to console him.  He tells BJ he did what he had to do.  Had he not cut that rope, he might have gotten that medal posthumously.  BJ fires back that thanks to his own selfish decision, someone is going to get a medal posthumously.  Hawkeye then admits he would have cut the rope had he been in BJ's situation.  At that point BJ snaps  He tells Hawkeye that he doesn't have a damn clue what he would or wouldn't do, and he hopes to God he never finds out.  And then he says this: 

“We sit around here in our Hawaiian shirts and red suspenders thumbing our noses at the Army, drinking home-brewed gin and flouting authority at every turn, and feeling oh-so-superior to those military fools who kill each other, and oh-so-self-righteous when we clean up after them. Well, good luck to you, pal. I hope you can keep it up. The minute I cut that rope, that made me a soldier."

In that one speech, he defines the entire modern era and its approach to - everything.  An era defined, let's be honest, by spending most of our time sitting in the comfort our forebears built for us, criticizing, complaining, condemning, mocking, and spitting on anyone and everyone, anything and everything, and especially the heroes - especially old dead sinful heroes who built what we are letting be destroyed.  A generation, I'm afraid, that would rather tear down the heroes than confront the villains of today.  

This all came to my mind when I saw this some time ago:

Now, I'll admit I've cooled to Karl Keating's musings over the years. As a Protestant Clergy Convert (PCC), he loomed large in the writings I was pointed to, and I was often glad of that.  But in recent years, I can't put my finger on why, I find him less edifying than in the olden crazy days of our entrance into the Church.

Victor David Hanson is a historian I sometimes enjoy, though I admit he can go historian shock jock, especially on social media.  Nonetheless he obviously has noticed something I've been observing for some time.  It's something my oldest noticed way back in his undergrad days.  He noticed that many called young conservative today would embrace things and accept things, ideals and values and lifestyles that would make a Woodstock hippy blush.  And that includes accepting many leftwing appraisals about the West and its unique evils in the world, including the evils of the good old USA. 

What Hanson is doing is heading off at the pass the growing tendency of even conservatives to accept these premises.  Including the conspiracy theory that the allies orchestrated the war – which is becoming more common to the Left of center.  Remember, even Pope Francis alluded to the old ‘We could have bombed a few rail lines and ended the Holocaust, but of course we didn’t’ canard.  Which is but a part of the whole ‘WW2 as Western Capitalist Conspiracy’ theory.  You know, we could have stopped the war at any time but our lust for global conquest and big bucks from our military industrial establishment would have none of it.  That’s what Hanson is aiming at.  That we bombed civilians is old news to this up and coming generation.  Of course we did.  We orchestrated the whole war and supported the Holocaust.  Why not bomb civilians for grins and giggles? 

From that POV, there was nothing but evil in WW2 (I forget which news outlet got in trouble back in 2022 for posting that meme showing the D-Day landings photo and then saying ‘Celebrating an army of white supremacists wading ashore to fight and army of white supremacists!’).  That is what more people are learning and saying, with even some conservatives apparently joining in (see David Brooks’ rise of the Conservative Nihilism).  Yet despite Hanson's desire to address this developing problem, what does Keating do?  Sweeps in and says not so fast buster, it's the bombings and nothing but the vile bombings.  We must ever and always address the bombings.  Be gone with your noble crusade gibberish.  

But that's us I'm afraid.  Even the thought that we should see the noble crusade element of WW2 seemed to set Keating off.  No way.  No heroes to honor, no sacrifices to remember. We zero in on the bad, the failings, the scandal, the controversy, anything other than just say 'we salute them.'  Or should I say, we sit around here in our Hawaiian shirts and red suspenders thumbing our noses at anyone in history, drinking home-brewed gin and flouting their legacy at every turn, and feeling oh-so-superior to those fools of the past, and oh-so-self-righteous when we perpetually turn from every noble cause to target their failure at being as awesome as we are on the Internet. 

I've often said that if all we do is find ways to criticize or tear down our heroes, don't be shocked when we end up with so few of them.  Which might go a long way in explaining what we see today. 

Hopefully some day, as large of a task as it would be, we'll have enough people finally stand up and say what BJ said. Hopefully some day we will realize just how shallow and self-righteous and basically valueless we've become. When all we can do is compare ourselves favorably to anyone who has accomplished great things by insisting we could have done better, yet with so little evidence to show for our claims. 

Episode 6, Season 11 "Bombshells":  He can be taught

Getting it wrong

So October 7th, the anniversary of the worst single day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, came and went with some minor mention.   A mixed bag.  There were stories of subdued remembrance in Israel. Other stories mixing up the mess of October 7th against Israel's genocide against Gaza.  Still others mentioned that some governments or government leaders took a dim view of protests siding with Hamas.  And, of course, Hamas went full blown celebration two years later. I haven't found if the US Bishops or Pope Leo said anything only addressing the massacre itself. 

To that end, I saw this story, by journalist Matthew Syed, going to a pro-Palestinian rally in England.  His point is that just asking if Hamas could be partly to blame for what has happened opened up a withering broadside of rage and accusations from those present.  After recounting some of his discussions with people there, he wrote this: 

with two exceptions (including a lovely black guy from North London who conversed intelligently and politely), the motivation for being here was obvious, potent and implacable. The hatred of Jews

No.  Not really.  Not that Jews aren't hated like any other group.  And I have bad news for the poets and dreamers and well meaning Christians in the world: There are Jews who hate Christianity and Christians just the same.  Hatred of others goes back to the beginning.  Just ask Abel. 

But what we're seeing here aimed at a normally protected group, is not the sudden hatred of Jews.  It's the hatred of the West.  It's accepting the Muslim/Palestinian version of history as Israel being the colonizing, imperialist oppressive extension of the Christian Western tradition that swept in and took what was always the Palestinians' part of the world.  That is what has set the hatred of these particular Jews into full swing.  Not hatred because they are Jews per se.  But they are linked to Israel.  Which in turn is linked to the West. 

The boilerplate defense is that you can condemn Israel and not hate Jews.  Perhaps that is true.  I think it is.  But that doesn't mean therefore that everyone who condemns Israel doesn't hate the Jews in question.  And while some have always hated Jews (like those on the Left who have always hated blacks, Hispanics, Asians and others and merely found new ways to live out this bigotry), most do so now because of the view that Israel is a Nazi State, like all of the West since the history of the West.

My oldest son, back when he was an undergraduate, made an interesting observation.  When I was growing up, the two dollar parlor debate was how the German people allowed that to happen.  How did they allow the Nazis to rise to power?  How the Holocaust? What the hell?  

My son said, at least in the view of not a few of his classmates and even professors, the answer was right in front of us all along.  It was because the Germans were Europeans.  It's what Europeans do.  And in the last few generations, many young people believe that Nazi Germany was merely one iteration of the typical history that has always defined all of Europe and the United States.  And that includes anything to do with the West, as in Israel. 

It's the reason why serious and continued support for the murder of Charlie Kirk is not going away. In fact, defending the right to want people like Charlie Kirk murdered has become the basis for the media's sudden obsession with free speech again.  Which speaks volumes.  It's because Kirk is defending, in the view of an ever consolidating movement, the broader Nazi reality of everything West that the Left seeks to undo. 

Remember, to the Left, the West is the enemy.  Like the Bolsheviks tearing down the memory of Tsarist Russia, the Left would throw down as much of the West, its heritage, history, values, religion, and identity as possible.  That includes such tools of oppression and injustice as forgiveness, freedom of speech, religious liberty, equality, and sometimes even democracy itself.  We won't even discuss the long ago discarded idea of the sanctity of human life. 

To that end, the Left allies with anything on the planet to aid in this endeavor.  And that includes the Muslim world.  I mean, we didn't think after almost a millennium of attempting to sweep into Europe and subjugate Europe to Islamic rule, the Muslim world just gave up because, for a couple centuries, Europe and the West got the upper hand, do we?  And this reality is either not known to Western progressives, or well known by them, and hence the alliance.  

No, what we're seeing is not just hatred of Jews.  It's hatred of the West, and that includes Jews that get swept up in identifying with anything to do with the West.  It includes Jews, Asians, Hispanics, women, blacks, and any group that doesn't properly join the cause of the West's eradication.  If we can't see that by now, I doubt even a dead man raised from the dead and telling us will do the trick. 

Yes it is good news

AKA Hitler, at least to the left of center

Apparently President Trump has brought back Columbus Day, much to the chagrin of the Left.  I've written about the assault on Columbus Day many times.  It represents the rampant presentism that defines the Left's approach to history.  It often rests heavily on our modern pick and choose approach to facts and reality.  Its replacement rests on that multi-cultural deifying of any civilization not west of the Urals.  And it certainly shows that side of out country that wants our country burned to the ground.  Since obviously, as President Trump said a decade ago, it didn't stop with Columbus or Robert E. Lee.  

Nonetheless, it will be a short-lived victory.  The minute - the second - the Democrats get a president in the Oval Office it will be stricken just the same.  As will many things President Trump has done in such a manner.  The problems are deeply rooted.  It's been said we're in a Cold Civil War.  That is likely true, though it has been getting hot in recent years.  

Of course take the win while we can.  We've never stopped referring to Columbus Day in our home, and despite having a significant line of American Indian in us, never bought into the indigenous people worship endorsed by the Left (and, sadly, no small part of the modern Church). We even still give the day off from school to our youngest. But again, a short lived victory no doubt, unless things take a radical turn from where the Left would have them go. 

What I've been saying for years

John C. Wright, who sometimes can be a bit gruff for my tastes, nonetheless hits the nail on the head:  

The Left will support whatever causes the most harm to Christian civilization and likewise will oppose whatever most is needed to help it: whatever most degrades the social fabric, whatever spreads vulgarity and ugliness, whatever promotes vice and crime

Because: 

They hate the West and seek to dismantle it, because and solely because the West is Christendom.

Not that he's alone, or that I'm the first to say such a thing.  It's just something I've been saying for years now, especially in the last few years where it takes more blind ignorance to deny the fact than admit it.  

The Left is about the utter destruction of the Christian, Western democratic tradition.  The values, heritage, heroes, principles, manners, attitudes, beliefs, virtues, decency, common sense and base morals of anything vaguely connected to the Western Tradition are at best suspect, at worst in dire need of eradication.  And that includes apparently timeworn assumptions such as liberty, equality, the value of life and the abhorrence of violence.  All thrown upside down, changed or tossed in the trash.  Anything, anywhere or anyone that aids in that mission will be tolerated at worst, lionized at best.  

Whether it can be stopped or we're merely witnessing that next stage in history that moves into a dark age after a period of development and striving for the better remains to be seen.  After all, a growing number of Christian leaders today seem to begin every statement with an explanation that Christianity is best seen through a post-Western set of glasses.  

Nonetheless, know thine enemy, as the old saying goes.  And it's almost impossible to think of the manifold blessings and benefits that the Christian West brought to the world and not see the ones trying to undo it all as the enemy. 

"We are told to love our enemies, but Jesus never once said that in doing so they would cease to be our enemies."  A quote from an old Presbyterian colleague and friend from my ministry days. 

If you get your news from the news media

You probably missed that this is the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. That's because I haven't seen a single news outlet mention it yet.  That's a far cry from when I was in second grade, and can remember hearing about the upcoming Bicentennial of 1976.  Even before the year 1976 began, we were getting ready in school and hearing about our nation's plans for the upcoming celebrations on both local and national outlets.  But then those who sought to destroy our nation and heritage, though coming into their own in various institutions of influence, were still a minority.  

Fast forward to today.  Since I haven't seen any television news outlet mention this yet, I Googled the actual 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution and this is what I got in the top results:

Thank goodness for the Cape Cod Times!  PBS is there, reminding us of our divisions and not too subtly giving a microphone to those who see the true revolution being against Trump.  But I failed to locate a story in any major, national newspaper or outlet. 

I think it's tough for us old timers to comprehend just how deliberate the war to destroy the Christian, Western Democratic tradition is.  And how much it has achieved.  Those cases of journalists and academics and others preaching the doctrine of racial discrimination, curtailing free speech, mitigating religious liberty, supporting government censorship, justifying proper uses of violence, and putting an end to the West and its bastard child America, have been doing yeoman's work to be sure.  I doubt for them that this notable anniversary will be anything more than a bump in the road, if they bother to mention it at all. 

Who knows?  Perhaps Ken Burns's Revolutionary War documentary will remind us how blessed we are and how wonderful our country and its founding truly was.  I won't hold my breath. 

FWIW, I could say the same thing about the anniversary of VE Day.  The 80th anniversary I should note.  I did find a slew of stories from British outlets, including the BBC.  But here in the US?  Reuters mentioned it, and that's all.  The call to either hate our history or at least forget its history is one of progressivism's key strategies.  From what I have seen over the years, it appears to be working like a charm.

The biggest lesson from Ken Burns

Burns reminds me of the adage that history isn't so much written by the winners as it is taught by the winners. Or at least taught by those who want to keep in the good graces of the winners.  Saying in 2025 that we need to focus more on the negative of America's history is like saying McCarthy should have spent more time focused on Communism. At this stage, the negative is all that most, especially the young, ever hear.  From our schools and their curriculums, the media and press, Hollywood, and even churches.  After all, a growing number of such venues as Evangelical churches are led by younger and younger leaders who have, for most of their lives, heard that there is scant difference between the Swastika and the Stars and Stripes.

As my sons said from their time in public school, and that was in the 2000s: Pretty much everything America was a negative.  And what heroism, or 'glorious' chapters as Burns says, was mentioned at all was wrapped in the assumption of malice, bigotry, and ulterior motives.  In other words, we might have beaten the Nazis, but it had nothing to do with anything other than our own lust for power, empire, money for arms manufacturers, or other nefarious reasons.  And that was going on 20 years ago.   

For those who spent years wondering what they would do if a force of tyranny ever rose and sought to destroy our nation, our heritage, our values and our freedoms, now we can see.  Someone like Burns either knows what he is doing, or is so oblivious to his own place in our historical context that it’s no longer profitable to care what he says.

Thanksgiving and why conservatives lose

So it was that time of year again.  Not the time when we're told how racist Thanksgiving is and how the holiday should be abolished while we put our emphasis on Indigenous Peoples Month. Nope.  Truth  be told, I heard and saw little of that this year.  The year 2021 seems to have been the high water mark of the Left's America hate, when that sort of thing was everywhere and around everything American.  This year it's been references to the strategically placed 'Native American Heritage and Indigenous Peoples Day', but not much else.  Which is like those atheists who post 'There is no God' around Christmas.  No clue if the election had anything to do with the dialed down level of such rhetoric this year.

No, I mean from the conservative side.  When I first became Catholic and was frequenting many a Catholic blog, most of which were right of center, I was rather taken by the posting around the first Thanksgiving.  As we went through RCIA, I remember one of the instructors saying that we Americans don't know the real first Thanksgiving, owing to our Protestant bias. Eh.  I though OK, fair call, but the holiday received is the one we received, and that's part of our shared heritage as Americans, so I don't feel I'll make any changes any time soon.  Plus, if most don't know the specifics, they are aware that Spain and Catholicism was here, it's just we became an Anglo-American society owing to the influence of Enlightenment era Protestant England and the victories and accomplishments thereof, so the traditional approach makes sense.

But that first year I realized this is not some off the cuff remark in an RCIA class.  That same approach was - everywhere on St. Blogs.  I lost track of how many blogs that year posted variations on 'The REAL First Thanksgiving' was Catholic.  And it still happens.  I don't think a year has passed that I haven't seen it on at least a couple Catholic blogs  Which, you know, is nothing other than a variant on 'It should really be Indigenous Peoples Day!'  If you think on it.

Oh, quibble all you want about leftwing agendas and the differences here, but ultimately what is being said is that the heritage we have in the Thanksgiving Holiday is flawed, and should be reframed, or rethought, or rebranded.  Which is all the Left is saying, just to other extremes.  

And that's why conservatives lose.  I've often said that at any time of the year, the Left can count on 1/3 of conservatives and those on the right jumping on board and siding with whatever the Left is pushing.  This goes way back.  One of my pet hypotheses is that America began its formal decline when we became convinced that America had no right to have a cultural and ethnic identity. That is, we could not be a WASP nation.  No matter how the nation attempted to allow others in and push equality and make sure everyone is given the same fair shake, we simply could not be a WASP nation by identity and culture and social majority.  

That was driven into me in elementary school, when I first hear the term WASP, and was taught how glorious is was that we were putting that identity behind us.  And first up on the list was not the Civil Rights legislation, or anything to do with Jim Crow.  It was Kennedy becoming the first Catholic president.  That was the wonderful chink in the WASP armor that signaled we were not longer merely a Protestant nation, we were a Christian one.  Much to the delight of Catholics then and now. 

Learning about that in fourth grade was, I'll admit, ironic, because by then we were already tossing not only our Christian ideals, but religious ideals in general, into the outer darkness and becoming a secularized, atheist state in all but church attendance.  Yet Catholics then as now cheered the idea of getting rid of that WASP, at least insofar as it meant Protestant, identity. The problem now is clear.  As I said, it didn't stop with erasing the Protestant. Nor did it stop with anything else.

Yet every year, on the Catholic internet, Catholics will join the Left in saying why Thanksgiving as we have it is at least flawed in our understanding. Most, of course, don't go so far as to say throw down the holiday and burn it in the turkey friers.  And there are those least those who are more conservative, who still celebrate and give credit to the traditional holiday and its more Protestant origins.    

But it's there nonetheless.  An 'us v. them' approach to the holiday that I've noticed the Left will always and forever condone and encourage and be grateful for, especially when done among those who otherwise oppose the Left.  Something you never see happen anywhere left of center I might add.  Which is why the Left wins.  Even amidst temporary setbacks.  Because whatever the Left doesn't learn, it will always know that in the future, conservatives will forever be bickering and dividing themselves, and if nothing else, the Left will be able to call that a win. 

Oh, and we won't even get into that odd 'the real lesson of Thanksgiving is that socialism never works.'  Not saying it does or doesn't, but the real lesson I grew up with until the rise of multi-cultural anti-Western dribble was that the Pilgrims put it all on the line and risked everything, even their lives, in this new land all because of their beliefs and convictions.  And when against hope they survived, they joined with the natives of the land and gave glory and thanks to God as the reason they survived.  Even in elementary school, we learned that.  So please stop with the 'enough of the God stuff Dave, it's about the economy stupid.'  Again, the first step in defeating an opponent is to stop helping the opponent.  Because anything that cuts through our side is always a boon for theirs.  

A couple old reflections for this Veteran's Day

Let's fight to keep what they served to protect

One here, remembering my family members who have gone before from an All Souls Day post, that includes some veterans on the list.  

And here, where I unpacked more my favorite veteran - my late dad, as well as others.  

Also here is a less pleasant one, a post dealing with Catholic BLM activist Gloria Purvis.  In it she claimed a celebrated war hero from WWII was never honored - I'll let you guess why she implies he was never honored.  Yet as readers of the comments section will note, and something I later verified myself, in a war that saw war heroes lifted up and celebrated for any reason possible, he was actually quite honored and celebrated in the day.  Far more than many heroes of the time. 

Whether partisan driven laziness or willful ignorance or whatever on Purvis's part, I don't know.  I'll take a charitable assumption and guess she just wasn't driven to find out the facts ahead of time (which was discoverable on none other than Wikipedia). And those who reposted her post back then with tears and sorrows for our racist nation assumed that she had done the required research.  

But given Veteran's Day as a day to remember those who served, and given that we saw such a repudiation of those like Purvis and their style of leftwing activism that seeks to tear down and besmirch what those veterans served for, it seems a fitting thing to link to on this day of remembrance. 

And just in case we need a reminder for those striving for goodness and virtue against the Left's alternatives:  

L to R: Not a Hero, Hero

Some old reflections on Columbus Day

Here, here, here and here.  It's barely mentioned now.  In fact, here in Buckeye land, this is the time when different outlets point out the effort by some to change the name of our state's capital.  One network - our local CBS affiliate - now refers to the city and city news as 'C-Bus.'  In fact its morning news magazine that was Wake up Columbus is now Wake Up C-Bus.  That's long been an informal nickname in these parts, but usually not for official use.  

Today Columbus is all but gone, and increasingly if the day is mentioned at all, it's Indigenous Peoples Day, or similar.  Of course now we're seeing challenges against everything from Washington and Jefferson, to the Constitution itself (earlier editorial from the New Yorker).

Things are happening fast.  Vichy Conservatives have long hidden behind the idea that bellyaching about such trivial things is just sissy stuff.  They'll wait until the gulags or the gas chambers are in full swing, then they'll start to worry.  Never a great strategy.  And looking at where things are and where they are going, and how quickly they are getting there, should be all the evidence you need for that appraisal. 

As for the Left venerating cultures who did what Columbus is accused of doing or worse?  Need I prattle on about that?  I think by now the reasons for that strange hypocrisy should be clear. 

That was my guess

I posted on the mixed up messaging with Juneteenth here.  For the record, I finally blocked Greydanus at FB because I was tired of the mendacity.  Beyond so much BS regarding not admitting the obvious, he is definitely a white guy who has bought the 'white is evil' narrative.  He will bypass the horrors of many suffering innocents until he can find someone white to post against.  Well, despite blocking him, and because of his perpetual focus on only white crimes, I saw a copy of this in a thread:

As a disclaimer, it didn't include the post itself, and because I blocked him I don't know what he said.  But I'm willing to guess.  Nonetheless, take note.  It's apparently linking to BLM activist Gloria Purvis.  Why now?  If my math is good, it's the 9th anniversary of the tragic mass shooting.  Not exactly a milestone.  So why now?  And in Pride Month no less?  

But that's the point.  The reason I posted my post about Juneteenth was that we noticed a few stories about random civil rights topics this month. A murdered black person from the past here, a falsely accused civil rights activist there, a reminder of the history of slavery over there.  And in Pride Month?  What gives?

That's when it dawned on us.  Having made Juneteenth a thing, the Left can now designate yet another month to the trashing and hashing of the rehashed trash of America's vile sins and evil past.  Couple with those now saying Juneteenth is a day about black culture, and others saying it is Independence Day for blacks, whites can have their own, it's obvious where this is meant to go. 

So once again we are told by those on the Left that if we do something it's because of some lofty, harmonious and unifying goal.  Only to realize a year or so later that this is not the case at all.  Once again it is to tear down and destroy the West, the US and the Christian traditions.  

UPDATE: So Greydanus has stepped in with his reaction to the debate last night. Remember Trump's  celebration of Nazis all those years ago.  And now Trump says he doesn't know if Washington owned slaves.  Of course Washington owning slave is really the only thing worth knowing about him today.  And one of the reasons I blocked Gredyanus, things like sanctification or redemption by Christ or working out one's own salvation have definite stopwatches and time limits.  When I pointed out that America ultimately did right by the Civil Rights movement, he shot back that I should look at how long it took. I said I didn't think there was some time limit for people - much less entire nations - striving toward holiness and doing good.  But for him, yep.  His Catholic Church has all sorts of limits and provisos.  I can't say if he applies the same to transgender mutilation, abortion or black on non-black racism, or continued attacks on the Jewish community by pro-Palestinians since he never dwells on such things.  But this is why I don't follow him any more.  

The reason I don't do Juneteenth

I've only heard him mentioned once this year

Is different from why I never got into MLK Day.  I didn't care for MLK Day because, to me, MLK just became discount Jesus for a nation afraid to invoke Jesus for fear of being called names.  As opposed to whatever official reasons, that was my guess.  And that is why I imagined it wouldn't last forever. 

Since 2020, MLK day hasn't been what it used to be.  When my sons were in public school, they began hyping MLK before the Winter Break that happened at the end of December.  Then into January it was MLK all the way.  That focus would continue through Black History Month.  There were also ample other times in the year to focus on MLK and America's racist identity: Colonial era, the Revolution, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Segregation and Jim Crow in the 20th Century. 

Of course it wasn't just school.  In my ministry days, whenever I heard other pastors preach, it was common to hear them quote or somehow invoke MLK.  Scarcely did a sermon or a lecture or speech pass without at least one mention.  Sometimes he would be the exclusive focus or reference, even when Jesus barely got a dashed off mention.  News reports, college and high school lectures, editorials, documentaries, news interviews on television - you couldn't go three days without hearing of MLK or at least the broader Civil Rights Movement to which he was attached. 

Since 2020, however, that has passed.  There was an attempt to insist we had the whole MLK legacy wrong.  Turns out MLK thought nothing of dividing people into skin color and judging accordingly.  And not a few posts and editorials said MLK was warming to the whole ultraviolence approach to justice.  Which prompted my sons to rename him MLK-Ninja Warrior.  So singing the praises of the Man of Peace isn't as easy now that we realize violence can be a wonderful answer and it is about judging based on skin color. Which is likely why I haven't heard of him for weeks, if not longer.  

Now it's Juneteenth. And in this case you won't see me paying attention to it because, like Critical Race Theory, I have yet to hear a straight answer regarding what it's all about: 

1. A holiday for the black community about black culture and black only and everything, with a fair dash of America's racist past.

2. A holiday for everyone, but whites and others are merely invited, the planning and focus being on blacks in America and blacks in America alone, with a fair dash of America's racist past.

3. A holiday commemorating the historical event of freeing the last slaves in America which should become our real independence day, with a fair dash of America's racist past.

4. A holiday that is important because it was made by blacks alone, and the federal government merely put a stamp of approval, rather than coming up with it itself.  Again, with a fair dash of America's racist past

4. A holiday commemorating the government sending the US army to Texas to inform the slaves that they were free, being the last primary holdout of enslaved African Americans, that should be for all people. 

Until we get an executive decision on what it's actually about, I'll hold off.  Especially since I'm already seeing more and more black Americans preferring a combo of #2 and #3, with a dash of #4.  In one of our local news FB pages, several jumped into the comments to all but say it's about black everything and July 4th is dead to them.  My attempts to explain that without July 4th you don' t have Juneteenth  went about as far as you'd expect.

So nope.  Right now, my gut feeling is that its main purpose is to 1) perpetually keep the sins of America alive as yet another month becomes a vehicle for trashing the Western Tradition and its values, 2) dividing people up between groups antagonistic toward each other, and  3) downplay or outright erasing the heritage, heroes and history of the United States.  

Since I'm not stupid enough or uneducated enough to buy into such things, and there is no clear consensus on what the whole thing is supposed to be anyway, I think I'll spend my time elswhere.

Note what is missing.  What happened to 'a holiday for all Americans'?

Good for them

Be them

Good things can start with baby steps.  A school board in Virginia - Shenandoah Valley Schools - has voted to restore the names of Confederate generals to schools in its district.  The article says this is the first time in US history that a school district has done this.  I don't know how many times it has come up.  The names were changed in the anti-American protests and riots that took place in 2020. 

Of course conservatives hail Donald Trump as a prophet for seeing where destroying the statues of Robert E. Lee would end up going.  But that's not prophetic.  That's common sense and reality.  Anyone who didn't think it would end up being used to wipe out anything in America's and the West's history or heritage was either a fool or a coward or a Marxist.  Hence why Nikki Haley jumping on the bandwagon with the Confederate flags was a deal breaker for me.  Either she was willing to play with forces dedicated to destroying the Western Tradition and American Experiment, or she was hopelessly naive.  

But this is good news.  It will likely come under a withering assault from the anti-Western forces of the Left (let's finally be honest people).  And this would be a good time for citizens of the Democratic West and the heritage of the Western Christian tradition to rally around them and plant their banners around this school district.  I think one problem with standing up to the forces against the Faith and its heritage is the tendency we have of letting those who do so get shot to pieces by the Left. 

Telling

 I have seen this pop up over the last couple days:

It references the continued push to expand sex change procedures on minors while lowering the age of exposing our children to our modern porn sex culture.  It might include the sudden debate over just when celebrating the genocidal slaughter of Jews is or isn't a deal breaker.  I don't know.  I should mention that some of the individuals who posted this are not exactly your hard right of conservative types.  A couple actually shocked me.  

Almost hand in hand with this, I've seen this Rockwell pop up in response (a sort of how far we've fallen reference):

Suggesting that while never perfect, we certainly have lost something with throwing God out the window and into the ghettoes of our society.  Believe it or not, there are Christians who think allowing God and Christ to be removed from our societal stage has been detrimental to our nation. 

Well, as I'm seeing the above images, I then see this linked to from Catholic deacon and film critics Steven Greydanus:

Because to the Left, our past is 100% bad.  One of my sons once quipped that with the modern Left, it's not a case of the glass half empty as oppose to half full.  When it comes to our history, heritage and heroes, the glass is altogether empty, crush by a steamroller, and covered by radioactive waste.  

Deacon Gredyanus swooping in to remind us that no appeal to the past can exist apart from focus on the sins of the past demonstrates one of the Left's main trump cards.  Condemn the past for its sins.  Define the past by its sins.  Declare those all defining sins irredeemable and all tainting.  Anything in the past is therefore tainted by these sins.  Anything the past condoned is therefore suspect.  If you think boys and girls used to exist, or raising kids should be parents' priorities, or judging based on skin color is always wrong?  Well, that what those racists in the racist past said, ain't it?  Therefore, anything and everything from the past is, at best, open to debate.  Including the idea that sexing up our children or altering their underage bodies might be suboptimal.  

In fairness, I should mention that I don't know Deacon Greydanus posted the above image in direct response to the others.  After all, this isn't the first time that a Christian argued for remembering a time of more religious devotion in the past as a positive. Nor is it the first time Deacon Greydanus has swept aside appeals to the past that don't emphasize slavery or Jim Crow.   It just all happened around the same time, and I felt it telling.  

UPDATE: Then again.  Someone explained to the good deacon that not all was bad in the past, and not all is the best in the present.  Let's say, school shootings?  And he responds:

So there you go.  Trying to find the good of the past should always deflect to the bad.  But if you pine for the good but don't embrace the proper politics of today, can faith ever be found on the Earth? 

Ken Burns is what we call White Noise

That is, just another annoying blip in the noisy static.  Apparently he produced a docuseries called The United States and the Holocaust.  If the interview in this article is any indicator, it is the same old same old for many, especially young, Americans.

That is, he's gracious enough to say the United States wasn't exactly responsible for the Holocaust per se, but then proceeds to explain how the United States and Nazi Germany were practically salt and pepper.  He trots out the Jim Crow era, genocide, Native Americans, slavery and antisemitism charges, applied to one country as easily as to the other.  

Apparently at least one episode focuses on the rift between FDR and antisemite Charles Lindberg.  I asked my son, who recently graduated college, about that.  He told me that those of his peers who even had heard of Lindberg, only knew him as some Nazi hero in our Nazi country, vaguely aware that he did something with flying. 

In keeping with our era of hyper-judgmentalism, the series seems wrapped in the context of 'sure we beat the Nazis, liberated the camps, and allowed thousands to come into our country ... but we didn't do it perfectly enough.'  Not like it would have been if our generation was there!  When you have the track record we have, I suppose arrogance is all that's left. 

The funny part of this interview is that one of the producers seems to think they've really blown the lid off of something.  The person talks about how 'uncomfortable' the real truth of our nation and its role in those events makes people in the audience feel, once they see the production. Really?  That's like saying people will be uncomfortable when they learn the secret that slavery existed in America's past.  That's as much a lack of awareness as you can get.

Years ago, when I used to comment on the Huffington Post, I ran into people who believed that the whole of the Holocaust was an American conspiracy, as was the entire war.  By then (c. 2004ish), it wasn't uncommon to run into people online who believed the Nazis were lifted up by the American Military Industrial complex for the sole purpose of inciting a war that the US could then exploit, and use to subjugate the world to our racist, imperialist ways. Compared to them, the saner ones back then dismissed such thinking, being content with the notion that America was no better than the Nazis, and didn't really lift them up as much as inspire them (the old 'the Nazis became racist when they studied the Confederacy' storyline).  

That was almost 20 years ago.  Does Mr. Burns really think people like that have gone away as opposed to multiplied exponentially?  Does he really believe they will be uncomfortable with his documentary?  About the only thing that will make them uncomfortable is his insistence that the US isn't solely responsible for the Holocaust.  That might bother them a bit. 

I don't think we realize just how post-Western, and by extension post-American, we already are.  Harkening back to my oldest son, he said a cool 1/3 of his classmates can barely distinguish between the Swastika and the Stars and Stripes.  Had I not seen examples myself of such thinking over the years, I'd almost be inclined to think he exaggerates.  But I have.  

And we have those useful fools like Burns, a historian I've traditionally enjoyed, to thank.  Because instead of seeing the bleeding obvious, they think they are bravely facing the fan club by exclusively focusing on the negative, endlessly criticizing, and so blurring the line between Nazis and America.  

BTW, all of this is made possible by the Left effectively elevating Western-based racism as the only, all defining, most evil, unpardonable sin in the world. And that goes for anything we thought we did well, like win the Second World War.  This is aided by the fact that by now, about 75% of our recollection of WWII is focused on the Holocaust, primarily as it effected Jewish (and sometimes homosexual) victims; about 10% focused on the Japanese interment camps* in the US, another 10% recalling the use of the Atomic Bombs, over 4% (but growing) the segregation in the US military in WWII, and a shrinking less than 1% on D-Day.   

For most youngsters today, that was WWII. The tens of millions of others killed barely make a drop in the bucket where focus is concerned.  The soldiers?  Except for some minority groups, they are barely mentioned at this point.  I subscribe the the National Veterans Memorial and Museum updates.  It's been many moons since a white male veteran was showcased.   You could be forgiven for not knowing white men ever served in our military if you got your info from that museum.  

But then, when mentioned at all, it's increasingly the fact that they were likely racists in their own white supremacist army.  Hence Burns can acknowledge 'a little heroism' from that time, but those were mere specks of light in the overall darkness that is, and always has been, America.  When that's your narrative, it's not hard for young people to conclude the Soviets might have been the good guys all along. 

*In December 2021, I saw on the news that some Asian American activists are wanting 'Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day' to be replaced by the anniversary of the Japanese Internment camps.  Sort of how Juneteenth will assuredly never be used to replace July 4th.  Again, we're seeing the utter destruction of the West and America, and it's likely a bit too late to stop it.  Thanks go brilliant thinkers like Burns. 

I'm sorry my racism was revealed

Is the gist of this story about the racism of Boston's mayor being exposed.  Really.  She's not saying she's sorry they wanted a Christmas party for only non-whites.  She's just sorry the email went out to white people.  

The whole leftwing idea that the Nazis weren't necessarily bad people, they just race hated and industrially mass murdered all the wrong people for the wrong reasons is stunning to behold.  But because the Left now holds the crown, scepter and orb of our nation, there ain't much we can do about it.

Let's face it, if a white Republican sent a similar email excluding non-whites, the mainstream outlets would relocate their newsrooms to outside that mayor's office for the next week.  As it is, except for the Wall Street Journal and some typically right leaning news outlets like The Post, I found nothing in any MSM outlets about this story. 

Which is why the modern news media is about as worthless as alcohol free whisky.  But more sinisterly, clearly it is about advancing agendas and ignoring inconvenient evils, no matter who is hurt or how.  Which is the next step before tyranny, when these things are happening and there is nothing you can do. 

 

When Catholics are the Left's best friend

Always comes to mind around Thanksgiving, as Catholics everywhere rush forth to pull the rug out from under the traditional Thanksgiving holiday customs and stories.  Remember, one of my core observations is that at any given time, with any topic under the sun, that thing we call 'The Left' can count on 1/3 of all who oppose it to join in a particular cause. 

Now, the Left is easy and pretty open to work with in this regard.  One of its most important tasks is to upend the Western tradition.  Call it evil, wrong, dumb.  Say we have been wrong about our history, our heritage, our heroes.  Anything.  Today labeling it with the unforgivable sin of colonialism, or imperialism, or racism, does the job since in our post-Christian age, forgiveness is passe.  Call something those things and it's as good as saying eradicate them now. 

But if you can't go that far, at least demand change, or say we ware wrong, the heroes were not, we've been lied to - anything that says the civilization we inherited is not real, is based on lies, was bad, whatever. 

Enter Catholics.  I've said the death of America began when we convinced ourselves that America had no right to be a WASP nation in terms of a common culture.  Even a WASP nation trying to assure everyone was free and had equal opportunities wasn't enough.  Apparently though China can have Chinese culture, and Japan Japanese culture, and Iran Islamic culture, and so on, America can't have a particular culture of its own.  

That was the context of learning what WASP meant when I was in elementary school.  There was a dark time in American history when America was a WASP nation - but then God said 'Let there be light', and our first non-Protestant was elected president!  Hurray!  One of the most significant events in American history, or so I learned in the day.  Catholics I knew back in the day, and even now, repeat that celebrated observation with gusto.  Often sprinkling it with allusions to old American Protestant bigotry against Catholics.  

Of course sane thinkers realized it would take no time to move from WASP to WASC, then WASR, and finally WASS real fast.  That's Protestant to Christian to Religious to Secular.  The Anglo-Saxon being a big thing then too, as Italians and Poles and Greeks were considered every bit the ethnic minorities in our country as Indians or blacks.  Of course today, as we chisel away at the remaining 'W' (white) part, anything from west of the Urals is part of White, and that has to go.

But this wouldn't be possible without the help of anyone not in the latest demographic designation that has to go.  And among those are Catholics - conservative Catholics, traditional Catholics, Catholics opposed to modern secular progressivism.  Because though they may despise and loathe and reject the Left's moves to overturn the West and America, they just can't resist at certain times of the year lending a helping hand. 

I first encountered that when I began visiting St. Blogs back in the mid-2000s.  It was heading into Thanksgiving that first year of my visits.  Most of the Catholic bloggers I followed were what you would call right of center.  But all of a sudden, I thought I was reading a secular progressive history book published by Pravda House.  I had no idea how wrong we were about the Thanksgiving story, even though it had been trounced for decades by that time.  I was stunned to see how worthless the Puritans were, or mean, or how those Protestants were really all about the slavery part, but a Catholic led the way.  Or how it was really Catholics who deserve credit for he real first Thanksgiving. 

And all those years ago, even then, I recognized the folly with this.  Is it wrong to go for accuracy?  To tell different sides of a story?  Well, no.  Depending on how you do it.  And depending circumstances. But there is a time and place.  I've said before there is nothing wrong with preaching against gluttony.  But I wouldn't advise it if you're in an anorexia ward in a hospital. 

In another age, if Catholics wanted to point out overlooked details, while not pulling the rug out from under the traditional story, celebration and events, no problem.  But I wouldn't do it now.  Because as I said, the Left is a patient and willing partner.  The only thing important is that you have someone - anyone - saying what America inherited, what we valued, what we celebrated, was wrong.  That's all. We can add the genocide and Nazi and racist filth later.  

That's why it's enough that even people not inclined to agree with the Left admit that some part of America we learned about was a lie all along.  Any part.  There will be plenty of others saying the same thing about other parts of the Western Christian Tradition.  And in the end, there will be quite a ledger of protests to justify the need to burn the whole thing to the ground - all signed by those who in most other cases are fighting like mad dogs to keep that from happening.

If you lose the birdwatchers, you've lost the West

So I saw this.  I had to do a double take. The American Ornithological Society is going to rename birds whose names are associated with Europeans.  That's because of course they are.  European means evil.  Evil cannot be forgiven or allowed to exist.  Evil must be erased and exterminated.  If you're having a hard time getting your head around young leftists cheering Hamas, joining with antisemitic chants, and saying the eradication of Israeli Jews just can't happen fast enough, this should help. 

Remember, there were three fundamental dogmas with the Left, and now there are four:

1) In a five billion year old Utopian world of peace, love, joy and John Lennon songs, the vile Western Christian Tradition alone brought all evil and wickedness to the world, and nothing good.  This is especially true as some of those things we gave credit to the West for changing - like ending infanticide - are increasingly seen as virtues, not vices.

2) All of history is the Oppressed versus the Oppressor.  If you are in that Oppressor class for the moment (depending on the topic at hand), you are seen the way Jews were seen in 1930s Germany.  It can be any two groups - Male v. Female, White v. Black, Straight v. Gay, Sane v. Trans, whatever.  But in all cases the Oppressor is altogether wretched and evil and the cause of all suffering, deserving nothing that he has, but everything he will get.  

3) A growing number of sins, especially bigotry and particularly racism, are irredeemable, all defining monolithic sins that demand the eradication of the sinner.  No forgiveness, no context, no nuance, simply erase. Just ask Columbus, Robert E. Lee, or Thom Jefferson. 

4) Plus, since 2020, the Left has followed its tendency of calling good what it once called evil, and evil what it once called good to the next logical step.  That is, going beyond embracing censorship, judging, dismissing equality to embracing violence for the just cause. Gone is 'violence is never the answer', now it's 'violence can sometimes be a damn good answer.' 

So when you see something like the AOS go all Taliban when it comes to Western history, imagine that in other circles.   I mean, when you think of threats to Western Civilization, birdwatchers aren't exactly what comes to mind.  Yet the easy and calm way in which they say these names must be erased, evil Europeans, scrub evidence of them, replace with appropriate words from not disposable civilizations, should be a wake up call.  That's how ubiquitous and implanted this thinking has become. 

And if that's what the bird watchers are willing to do, then what are those radical activists and zealots in our leftwing indoctrination camps formerly known as universities going to do?  Well, we're seeing what, aren't we.  Even though the press has done yeoman's work trying to sweep it under the carpet, these radical anti-Westerners won't be silenced.  They support the Palestinians, and are happy to see Israel wiped out.  That includes in some circles wanting Israelis wiped out.  That includes, in some quarters, pointing out that it isn't despite the fact that most Israelis are Jews, but precisely because they are Jews.  That's because try as they might, in the minds of the young Left, those Jews just can't sever the ties that exist between them and the West.  And that's all you need to know. 

After all, as the American Ornithological Society demonstrates, there is no room in our modern world for the taint of Western Evil.  And while the AOS may stop at renaming birds, others will happily take it to the next logical level. 

What happened?

When we lost corporate America, we lost the West

As I muse on this year's Columbus Day and/or Indigenous Peoples Day, I have to ask what happened and when did it happen?   In 1992, down in Florida, there was a big Columbus celebration marking the 500th Anniversary of his sailing that famous ocean blue.  There were replicas of the three ships. There was an exhibit in a nearby building.  Lots of information, I purchased some books and paraphernalia I still have.  Dad was with me at that time, so good memories. 

I realize that, by then, Columbus was already a lightning rod for debate.  In fifth grade, the first time I remember learning anything past that little ditty about 1492, we learned Columbus more or less died a broken man and a failure.  We also learned that if he didn't personally do everything evil in the world, his journey did unleash what would be the end of the peoples native to the Americas.  By then that was mostly a negative thing, but we still believed he brought some positives as well. 

In high school it was more of the same.  He did some impressive things, but was also a failure in the end.  The slave trade and the overall persecution of native populations was becoming more and more the focus.  But we still believed the West brought some positives to the world, so it balanced out to a net positive, if we could just find ways to right the wrongs of the past.

By college the debates were clearly swinging more and more to the negative.  The West was still seen as a net boon for the world, and despite increasing focus on the sins, the evils, the slavery, the genocide even, it was capped off with a generic 'but there were still some good things.'  I'd say by college, the appraisal of Columbus was as a man overrated, who unleashed horrible things on a beautiful civilization.  Nonetheless, the courage was still there, and the general benefits of the Western tradition.  So despite the increasing focus on the bad, there was still a thumbs up at the end of the day. 

That was certainly true by 1992.  Partly this was because we were still awash in 'thou shalt not ever judge', and presentism was always a no-no.  Yet now, consider it.  Columbus is not even mentioned in most cases.  Here in Columbus, it's officially Indigenous Peoples Day.  When Columbus is mentioned at all, it is in the same manner in which one speaks of Hitler, or Himmler, or Thomas Jefferson.  Naturally we're also reminded of the growing push to rename our state's capital. 

So what happened?  And when did it happen?  When we first moved to Ohio, there was a replica of the Santa Maria in the Scioto River in downtown Columbus.  I took the three older boys and the family there a few times.  It was a pretty impressive exhibit.  It was there until the later part of the 2000s.  Then it was removed, ostensibly for repairs and improvements.  But it was never seen again.  That reminds me of the statues of Columbus that have been removed, supposedly to be relocated to museums or educational venues. Last I heard they've been disassembled and the parts are in a warehouse.  Or the statues of Robert E Lee that were supposed to be relocated but some say have been destroyed. 

When did we turn that corner of no going back?  Because what is happening to Columbus is merely a small example of what is being done to the West as a whole.  In 1993, Columbus, for all his criticisms, was still seen as a hero to be admired.  A man who did great things and was courageous and bold and took the world to the next chapter in its history, in an overall positive way.  That was 1993.  By 2023, Columbus, when mentioned at all, is spoken of as an irredeemable villain to be eliminated; to be erased from history. So what happened?    

Telling

While watching the OSU game last Saturday (I seldom watch modern TV otherwise), I caught a commercial for Colonial Williamsburg.  Or, should I say, Williamsburg.  The 'Colonial' being conspicuously absent.  I found a commercial for Williamsburg back in 2021 that is pretty much the same (it might be the same, I just caught it once during the game):

Notice there is nothing - no thing - to suggest anything other than some variation on Myrtle Beach or Clearwater Beach or any one of a hundred tourist destinations.  No history.  No Colonial America.  No Revolution.  No historical reenactments. No shot heard 'round the world. No history at all.  If you didn't know, you'd think it was a typical Disney resort, if that.

Compare to this:

That was the type of commercial in the 1990s that I saw when planning our first family vacation.  In 1997 we took our oldest, then only a couple years old, to our first true vacation as a young family.  We went to Colonial Williamsburg, in large part due to the commercials.  It was magical.  It was everything you want your first family vacation to be.  

And the history!  Like the commercial, it was all over the place.  Everyone was in character at all times.  The lessons were broad and detailed, from the ugly and bad, to the more emphasized bravery and the heroism and the sacrifice and the overall debt we owe to our founders.  We went back in August 2001, and it was still good.  A bit hot for my taste (our first time was in late September).  But still fun, and with the three older boys (our third still being a toddler), it was a blast.

The last time we went, however, was in 2014 along with our youngest.  Disappointment doesn't begin to describe our experience.  Many reenactors stood about on their cell phones, paying scant attention to us.  Some were still good, but many didn't seem to care.  The tours were a mixed bag.  The first time we went in 1997 everything was period accurate no matter what the subject. That time?  Some tour guides showed up in jeans and jackets with flashlights.  Much preaching of course.  Naturally the lessons were exclusively negative: focus on persecution of Native Americans, sexism, bigotry and slavery in the 'every plantation and household was a gas chamber' template.  That prompted my second oldest to quip 'how did they have time to fight a revolution, what with all the time spent killing Indians, beating slaves and oppressing women?'.  

Now, to see the commercials, the history isn't even the point.  Ignoring the history, if anything, is the point.  And the newest trigger word 'Colonial' is removed. I have no doubt it's there if you visit.  But if the marketers and advertisers have their way, we'll never know unless we go.   

For decades - perhaps generations - we've been taught to hate the West, Christianity and America, though not necessarily in that order.  There was still enough hold over from olden times to dilute the message, especially for those of us who are around our forties or older.  But for the last couple generations, that is no longer the case.  For many coming into college now, they see Lincoln and Washington the way my generation was taught to see Hitler and Stalin.  And their nation, the United States?  They see it the way we saw the Nazis.   If' we're waiting for them to suddenly turn and start singing God Bless America, I fear we are going to have a long, long, long wait.