David Reaboi on America

As part of an interview he's given, some thoughts on America:
America’s weakest national security link is our disunity. We’re no longer in agreement about the most fundamental questions underpinning the regime—including who we see as allies and who we consider adversaries on the world stage. While there was always an insistent and vocal part of the American Left that agitated for our enemies during the Cold War, the mainstream debate consisted of how best to deal with the Soviet Union as an evil rival.... [But now] I don’t think another nation in history has been so thoroughly despised by its own elite class. Now, because these are our society’s elites, they have the power to change the character of the country, to finally wrest it from both the traditions of its founding and the citizens who still believe in those traditions. And they’ve largely done that; they’re just now trying to neutralize the last holdouts. That struggle is the disunity we’re seeing....

There’s an essential question many friends and I ask, when discussing a potential ally: “Does he know what time it is?” That is, does one have the ability to be unsentimental and realistic in assessing our current situation. Does he understand the predicament we’re in, with a left that’s already marched through the institutions? Does he accept the impossibility or the extreme unlikelihood of “returning” to anything resembling even the America of the 1990s? I think that grappling with these questions is a prerequisite for more than leadership, going forward; it really should be the minimum of what makes someone a political voice worth hearing at this point.
I know Dave, who is something of a pessimist (as he would admit himself). That predisposition is worth keeping in mind when you ponder his thoughts. But he's also both a 'wise guy' and a smart guy, who definitely does 'know what time it is.' Watching the Flynn story, and the larger Trump/Russia story unfold, it is clear that the institutions of this nation have been turned against it. Perhaps that started during the Obama administration; perhaps that was the point of acceleration. I wonder how right he is that it just won't be possible to fix.

6 comments:

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I think where it shows up is among those who think they are fairly reasonable, understand the evils of the USSR, and don't subscribe to leftist extremism yet still reflexively want to weigh in on the side of correcting against American exceptionalism rather than its opposite, American perfidy. They find different and more nuanced American (or Western Civ) faults, such as "commodification," or "structural racism." They plead to a lesser offense on the part of their fellow citizens. (Remember my frequently-cited CS Lewis essay on confessing other people's sins, "On the Dangers of National Repentance.")

It is not that there are leftist extremists in the country that is the problem. That may be a good thing, to keep us alert and considering other possibilities. It is that there is such a large number of people who think they are moderate when they are actually far to the left. They are impervious to reason.

Eric Blair said...

That's a very sharp observation.

raven said...

"It is not that there are leftist extremists in the country that is the problem. That may be a good thing, to keep us alert and considering other possibilities. It is that there is such a large number of people who think they are moderate when they are actually far to the left. They are impervious to reason."

This sounds like a difference in self awareness, not position.
It is impossible to reason with someone who has no core principals to refer back to as a base line.

David Foster said...

Here's a story relayed by the late Dr David Yeagley, Comanche Indian and a professor:

""LOOK, DR. YEAGLEY, I don’t see anything about my culture to be proud of. It’s all nothing. My race is just nothing.”

The girl was white. She was tall and pretty, with amber hair and brown eyes. For convenience’ sake, let’s call her “Rachel.”

I had been leading a class on social psychology, in which we discussed patriotism – what it means to be a people or a nation. The discussion had been quite lively. But when Rachel spoke, everyone fell silent.

“Look at your culture,” she said to me. “Look at American Indian tradition. Now I think that’s really great. You have something to be proud of. My culture is nothing.”

“You’re not proud to be American?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m happy to be American, but I’m not proud of how America came about.”

Her choice of words was telling. She was “happy” to be an American. But not “proud” of it.

On one level, I wasn’t surprised. I knew the head of our American History department at Oklahoma State University-OKC, and I recognized his hackneyed liberal jargon in Rachel’s words. She had taken one of his courses, with predictable results.

Yet, I was still stunned. Her words disturbed and offended me in a way that I could not quite enunciate."

Yeagley says that as he lay awake that night, he was reminded of those French women who had been eager to consort with the German conquerors. Yet he found their actions more understandable than those of Rachel:

"Who had conquered Rachel’s people? What had led her to disrespect them? Why did she behave like a woman of a defeated tribe?"





Grim said...

I suppose she was conquered by the tribe of academia. Submission was the coin of admission, which she paid.

ymarsakar said...

A unified One World Order religion may just be the Satanic religion become officially sanctioned by the state. In the best of dystopias... it's not very pleasant a scenario.

Even the Clinton faction opposed to the Rockefeller faction vs Rothschilds, isn't pretty. Let alone the higher cults.