The weather has turned cold. There was some sun today but temperatures were in the fifties. We got out for a walk and there was enough to do around the house but for some reason I couldn’t get a handle on anything interesting in the news. I guess things will have to percolate for a while.
I watched an old John Barrymore movie called Counsellor at Law. It was really pretty good. I hadn’t seen it for a few years and I even forgot the ending. It had all the stock characters for a movie taking place in 1930s Manhattan. And it occurred to me that the despised European immigrants that were the downtrodden denizens of the criminal courts in this movie have moved three generations later to the position of despised oppressors of the new downtrodden.
But the funny part is they did this without ever being rich or powerful in between. Our parents and grandparents struggled to become good Americans in the hope that their descendants would get to live in the working and middle classes by following the rules and believing in the civic nationalism that said that a man was judged by his deeds and not his pedigree.
And now we are told that all that was a mistake. Everything they did and we believed in was wrong. All that talk about freedoms and inalienable rights was just a dodge. It turns out that the Communists and the Fascists were right. Power comes from the barrel of a gun. We have no more right to freedom and happiness here than we did back in the old country where some patron or mafioso decided who got to work and who got to starve. In fact, at least back in the old country there was some sense of loyalty even toward the peasants by those in charge.
So, we’re all expendable now. Just a bunch of spare parts that are no longer needed in the new American economy. A giant game of musical chairs where they turn off the music and there’s no place left for you. It seems to me this explains why the Latinos are starting to gravitate toward the Republican party. They’re basically the new version of the southern Europeans of a hundred years ago. They came here expecting to work their way up and now they’re seeing the same dead end. And they’re figuring out that the Democrats aren’t the party that helps families. They’re the party of trans-gender indoctrination for their kids and of working women with no time for raising families.
I was reading Putin’s speech about the absorption of the Donbass regions into Russia. It was very long and had a lot about Russian history and the fall of the Soviet Union. But there was also a lot about the West.
I’ve copied some sections that I found interesting:
“In fact, they spit on the natural right of billions of people, most of humanity, to freedom and justice, to determine their own future on their own. Now they have completely moved to a radical denial of moral norms, religion, and family.
Let’s answer some very simple questions for ourselves. I now want to return to what I said, I want to address all the citizens of the country – not only to those colleagues who are in the hall – to all the citizens of Russia: do we want to have, here, in our country, in Russia, instead of mom and dad there was “parent number one”, “number two”, “number three” – are they completely crazy already there? Do we really want perversions that lead to degradation and extinction to be imposed on children in our schools from the primary grades? To be drummed into them that there are supposedly other genders besides women and men, and to be offered a sex change operation? Do we want all this for our country and our children? For us, all this is unacceptable, we have a different, our own future.
I repeat, the dictatorship of the Western elites is directed against all societies, including the peoples of the Western countries themselves. This is a challenge for everyone. Such a complete denial of man, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, the suppression of freedom acquires the features of a “reverse religion” – outright Satanism. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ, denouncing the false prophets, says: By their fruits you will know them. And these poisonous fruits are already obvious to people – not only in our country, in all countries, including for many people and in the West itself.
The world has entered a period of revolutionary transformations, they are of a fundamental nature. New development centers are being formed, they represent the majority – the majority! – of the world community and are ready not only to declare their interests, but also to protect them, and see multipolarity as an opportunity to strengthen their sovereignty, which means to gain true freedom, a historical perspective, their right to independent, creative, original development, to a harmonious process.
All over the world, including in Europe and the United States, as I said, we have many like-minded people, and we feel, we see their support. A liberation, anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony is already developing within the most diverse countries and societies. His subjectivity will only grow. It is this force that will determine the future geopolitical reality.”
Now I have no illusions about Vladimir Putin. He is a cold-blooded killer. He will use whatever means he needs to achieve his goals. He was the architect of the Second Chechen War, a brutal conflict. He is a Russian partisan. He has no love for America. And yet most of what I copied above from his speech is demonstrably true. Our government is erasing normalcy from our society and substituting a sick twisted anti-human creed. The family is denigrated and mocked. Freedom is being erased as a hate crime. Prosperity for most people is being outlawed. Even Vlad the Impaler can point to us and name our sins. They’re that mortally clear.
It’s a cold, kind of bleak day, but I found illumination in an old black and white movie and the words of a modern-day autocrat. The United States has abandoned the principles that made it great. It has broken faith with the people who fought for it and believed in it. It remains to be seen if it can be prodded back on the high road again. But at least I found a little clarity.