[Whirlwind]

A book by Patrick Buchanan:







America is coming apart at the seams.Forces foreign and domestic seek an end to U.S. sovereignty and independence.Before us looms the prospect of an America breaking up along the lines of race, ethnicity, class and culture.In Day of Reckoning, Pat Buchanan reveals the true existential crisis of the nation and shows how President Bush's post-9/11 conversion to an ideology of 'democratism' led us to the precipice of strategic disaster abroad and savage division at home. Ideology, writes Buchanan, is a Golden Calf, a false god, a secular religion that seeks vainly, like Marxism, to create a paradise on earth.While free enterprise is good, the worship of a 'free trade' that is destroying the dollar, de-industrializing America, and ending our economic independence, is cult madness.While America must stand for freedom and self-determination, the use of U.S. troops to police the planet or serve as advance guard of some 'world democratic revolution' is, as Iraq shows, imperial folly that will bring ruin to the republic. While America should speak out for human rights, the idea that we get in Russia's face and hand out moral report cards to every nation on earth is moral arrogance.While we have benefited from immigration and the melting pot worked with millions of Europeans, the idea we can import endless millions of aliens, legal and illegal, from every culture, clime, creed, and continent on earth, and still remain a country, is absurd.To save America the first imperative is to remove from power the ideologues of both parties who have nearly killed our country.In his final chapter, Buchanan lays out ideas to prevent the end of America.He calls for a bottom-up review of all of America's Cold War commitments, a ten-point program to secure America's borders, ideas to halt the erosion of our national sovereignty and restore our manufacturing preeminence and economic independence, and a formula for finding the way to a cold peace in the culture wars.Buchanan offers a radical but necessary program, for neither party is addressing the real crisis of America -- whether we survive as one nation and people, or disintegrate into what Theodore Roosevelt called a 'tangle of squabbling nationalities' and not a nation at all.

[Artie See]

America is coming apart at the seams.

I have neither the time nor the patience to write the response this deserves.

The fact is, this is fear-mongering, nothing more. What really threatens the U.S. is the politics of hatred as promoted by Karl Rove, where one party attempts to hold onto power by constantly attacking their opponents, while ignoring their own faults and failings. News outlets that surrender to this political propaganda like Fox News repeat the same kind of thing over and over so often that its listeners quote the same rhetoric in their personal conversations. And extremists like Rush Limbaugh are fostering division and hatred to a degree not seen in decades.

Patrick Buchanan really needs to look in the mirror, and give himself an honest self-evaluation. But he is probably far too overconfident to even think about it.

[citydweller]

What really threatens the U.S. is the politics of hatred

I have to agree, in part, with Artie's assertion that Buchanan is off base when he claims that the nation as a whole is out of control. It is but a tiny, although powerful, fraction of the nation's guidance system that has gone haywire, but this small element has indeed managed to create a "politics of hatred", or of fear, or both, that has sidelined the vast majority of more reasoned minds and voices in our society.

Buchanan does indeed need a good long look in the mirror, for he suddenly speaks like a man who would claim he was once possessed and isn't responsible for what he said or did in the past. Methinks he has aspirations to build for himself a new pulpit upon the foundations of fear and hatred he claims to decry and "expose", re-styling himself as a "new believer" and, of course, as a leader. Well you know the old saying - "If ya can't join 'em, point at 'em".

I have to disagree that Rove can be credited as the source of the virus. He's more like an explicit symptom, revealing more of the pathology of the disease than most other symptoms, but still concealing the larger source of the underlying illness.

What I see is that our centralized sources of constitutionally - empowered ruling authorities, and the White Haus in particular, have become internally de-centralized by design. Nobody really knows where to even look for the paper trail related to any given policy or critical decision. Washington has become like Damascus steel - always sharp, but so carefully folded and layered that you never really know from which fold of steel the sharp edge is coming from.

What I find most alarming about this state of uncertain rulership is that we literally can't be sure who to believe, about anything. We might find ourselves dragging an alleged "enemy of democracy" to the gallows only to find later that the "patriot" who gallantly led us forward on our quest to freedom was nothing more than another puppet-master pulling our strings.

Shadows dancing within shadows claiming to be rays of light on a murky day. We are deep in a maze of deceit so complex that it may be outside of our collective ability to honestly sort out the good from the bad. If that is indeed the case, the Founders left behind a clear path for us to follow to get out of the woods. G-d help us if we have to follow that path.

[Whirlwind]

Not the responses I expected. Politics of hatred, politics of fear. I think most of his observations are accurate. There is much to hate and fear.

Remember, when we find ourselves going the wrong way, he who turns back first is correct.

Can voting reverse our course? Only if the voters are informed enough to make good choices. I'm not seeing that yet.

Citydweller alludes to this:

"We are deep in a maze of deceit so complex that it may be outside of our collective ability to honestly sort out the good from the bad. If that is indeed the case, the Founders left behind a clear path for us to follow to get out of the woods. G-d help us if we have to follow that path."

In the meantime, I find it helpful to get informed. And that includes reading doom and gloom, to help get a fix on the conspicous problems, at least. The conspicuos problems are generally symptoms of the real trouble. Peel back the PC and soundbites to see what the root is.

The press we depend on to keep us informed dropped the ball long ago. They were told to. Little more than a propaganda arm of the government now. Which should compel you to look at that information that the press considers taboo.

Learn to trust your own discernment. Saying the same things the talking heads on the tube say is not discernment. It's a symptom.

[Artie See]

In the meantime, I find it helpful to get informed. And that includes reading doom and gloom, to help get a fix on the conspicous problems, at least. The conspicuos problems are generally symptoms of the real trouble. Peel back the PC and soundbites to see what the root is.

The press we depend on to keep us informed dropped the ball long ago. They were told to. Little more than a propaganda arm of the government now. Which should compel you to look at that information that the press considers taboo.

Learn to trust your own discernment. Saying the same things the talking heads on the tube say is not discernment. It's a symptom.

Whirl, I do read. And read. And read. And read.

I'm NOT trying to brag, but unlike most people I actually attend government meetings, to listen and learn. I go out of my way to keep up with what is happening at a national level. I've looked at facts and figures to the point that there are times when I can't look at the computer screen any more.

Most important of all, I do NOT watch network television news. Ever. I do watch the WGAL local news sometimes, only because it helps me keep up with local issues.

I do trust my own discernment. I don't blindly accept what is written or spoken. That's why I dig up the facts and figures before I form an opinion.

I can tell you this: the United States has faced far worse crises than these many times before in the past. For example, the extreme financial upheavals of the 1890s. The massive waves of immigration of the mid 1800s through the early 1900s, which make today's immigration issues seem like nothing at all in comparison. The political and financial crises of the 1930s, especially in the early part of the decade when there was SERIOUS talk of the government of the U.S. being replaced by a socialist state. The communist scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s, when in spite of the paranoia there WERE forces that wanted to turn the U.S. into a socialist state. The Vietnam War, which was driven by anti-communist fanatics AND profiteering business leaders (where well over ten times the number of Americans died than have died in Iraq and Afghanistan combined so far). And there were many others.

I remember being taught to "duck and cover" in elementary school because nuclear missiles in Cuba had the range to hit Lancaster. Try to compare today's issues to that kind of threat.

Yes, the U.S. faces some very serious issues, but none which are so serious that they threaten its very existence. They WILL be dealt with, without compromising our freedoms as American citizens.

In just over a year, the U.S. will elect a new president. I don't care what party they belong to, they will be forced to deal with the out-of-control Federal budget deficit; expect the next president to raise taxes, perhaps dramatically, even if they are Republican. Issues like immigration will be dealt with.

We don't have a worldwide depression, a world war, or an immediate communist threat to deal with. Even if we did, the U.S. will deal with it, and become stronger as a result.

[johnq]

I believe the fears of media manipulation are way overblown. I have a fried who teached a class at HACC. She recently offered this question as extra credit on an exam. "Name two presidential candidates from each party." I forget the exact figure, but well over half of these kids could not do it.

People are not being manipulated by the media, they are not even paying attention. Ignorance and apathy are widespread, as they always have been.

[Artie See]

People are not being manipulated by the media, they are not even paying attention. Ignorance and apathy are widespread, as they always have been.

Excellent point, John. We can see that all too often right here in Lancaster.