(10-23-2017, 05:08 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: With all that is happening collectively are we able to find the light that shines in the darkness indicating a change in perspective? Could it be yet the Millennials who will be able to show us that iIt’s possible that the grass is greener on the other side because you can see the signs of prosperity more clearly than you ever have before?
The Regeneracy. That's when there is only one path to the future that we can all accept because alternatives are either the wrong sort of change or an unsustainable status quo. Prosperity? Most of us will be looking at survival as an objective. We will recognize as a whole that we face consequences of failure even worse than death, including the destruction of what we hold dear.
We will need a vision of a better world in which the demons of the recent past are relegated to the realm of the horrific. At the same time we will need to preserve some traditions worthy of defense. But we had better get a genuine Regeneracy. We can get the tempting offer of a social order that offers a place for practically everyone, promises land to farmers, achieves full employment despite a worldwide depression, gives children purpose and structure in their lives, offers pageantry as a substitute for the troublesome habit of thinking things out, has answers even for questions that nobody asked, and offers the satisfaction of sadistic delights that people generally dare not express. People who don't fit in? They can be put out of sight and out of mind.
Want to see what a False Regeneracy looks like? A warning -- this video may be the most politically-offensive material that you have ever seen.
Admit it: there was hardly a more exciting time and place in human history in which to live than in the Third Reich, so long as you were white, non-Jewish, and not connected to Marxism or any form of 'obsolete' liberalism. Churchill and FDR may have been more adept at giving people cause for a wholesome and necessary struggle for old virtues, but those leaders spoke in reaction to Nazi crimes. The Nazis did great pageantry as a substitute for coherent, independent thought that the system did everything possible to destroy.
OK, so here is an antithesis:
Music composed in 1942 by Aaron Copland, words mostly of Abraham Lincoln selected by Carl Sandburg or from Sandburg's biography, clearly enunciating what America was fighting for. The enemies of America had become empires of masters and slaves, and were imposing like horror in occupied countries, including then the Philippines (which was already scheduled to receive independence).
It's telling that when America captured German soldiers and sought to disinfect them of the cancerous ideology of Hitler, American captors gave Abraham Lincoln as the antidote.
Lincoln's words:
Quote:Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. (Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862)
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country. (Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862)
It is the eternal struggle between two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world. It is the same spirit that says 'you toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation, and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle." (Lincoln-Douglas debates, October 15, 1858)
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy. (Unknown, though in Lincoln's Collected Works)
That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. (Gettysburg Address)
Need I say more?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.