Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

Don't despair... aspire, reach high, confront the mediocre, search for excellence then promote it. Those who lived through the Carter years understand the dejection, and despair caused by institutional mediocrity, and failure. These criminal's time will pass, it is natural to become temporarily discouraged - the operative word is temporarily. Search for great merit, it may be obscured, but merit can't remain long hidden. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxBQLFLei70

Understand that there is a large difference between being an advocate of military strength, and being a warmonger. I personally don't care much for McCain either, but few long term POWs ever want to see combat again. One thing that POWs do have is that they clearly understand the stakes when freedom confronts thugs - second place is not OK, failure is not acceptable. Obama is a warmonger. As a history aficionado you understand that his weakness virtually assures future conflict as the thug feeds on weakness.

Leading doesn't mean following the crowd - public opinion. During the Reagan years he was continually savaged by an adversarial press, not quite as badly as Bush, but badly. Yet he led, he led from principal, he led from life's experiences. Public opinion is a view from the rear-view mirror, it is backward looking, not forward looking. Want a public in favor of military strength? Give them something to believe in, give them something to believe in other than failure. Don't purge the senior officer corps for lack of accepting politically correct social engineering objectives - their job is to keep America safe, not to make slick look good. Don't abandon long standing friends. Confront evil - it is something worth dying for.

Despair is the normal result when failure is your MO. And without experience failure is practically the most probable outcome. Find the brightest minds, in books, and in life, and not just those who agree with you, analyze, reflect, integrate, then practice. Search out those who disagree with you then ask and evaluate why they disagree with you. Beware the arrogant, and narcissist for they need never reflect for in their mind, they make no mistakes - ever - failure is their stock and trade, and "compassion" is their camouflage - "oh, but we care so, so much." You noted your religious beliefs, one of the great tenets of life may be found in the Bible: "...know the tree by the fruit...." Beware those who say the right thing yet always have a bad outcome.

No one agrees with anyone all of the time, and no one expects Carte Blanche agreement. If you disagree, then reasons are the stuff of which argument and positions are formed - because I said so is not intellectual ammunition, and it doesn't get you far. Search here for what you may have missed, evaluate your most deeply held beliefs - question incessantly, and understand that America's first 175 years worked much better than the last 50 IMO.

One major thing that concerns me is that, indeed, history is repeating itself once again. I've talked to numerous people and realize that we are just as arrogant, just as complacent, and just as unprepared for a major attack as we were in 1941. With all the talk that China can't possibly threaten us, we said something very similar- indeed, almost word for word- against Japan, only to be proven completely wrong. Doing the same thing against China would be even more disastrous yet it appears likely.

Our current policy is assuming that war is a thing of the past, that we'll never have to fight another ground war again, so why bother preparing for it? Any comparisons I try to make about similar mistakes in the past are shot down "We're more civilized than that now" "Things are completely different" "We're so far ahead of everyone else that we're in no danger". Of course, there are others who like to say that any warning of China or anyone else is all lies.

Sadly, pretty much everyone in office at the moment care more about their political power, crushing their rivals, rewarding their cronies, and screwing everyone else over than actually attempting to do something about the very real threats we currently face. Plenty of historians criticize our decision not to mobilize and prepare for WWII sooner, but that's exactly what we're doing today. Don't forget: winter is coming.

It's the Cassandra syndrome: given the gift of prophecy, cursed never to be believed. It's the reward for your historical efforts.

Gerald, you wrote:

The problem is bigger than that. How do you educate people about what they have forgotten? Because only today is important ?. The past and the future is irreverent, --- I want mine NOW! Think not? --- An example, in Tahiti , where I spent some time, the natives only think of "today". "Yesterday" is gone so forget about it. "tomorrow" is not yet here so don't think about it. "today" is the only thing that is important. How do you run a complex society on that basis? Look around, how many societies think or act other wise? With long range planning you can control many things, and make people willing slaves.

I prepared some thoughts but came upon something that I thought caught the essence of your question. The link will take you to a Bill Whittle commentary video, and article. As I noted the question that you ask is complex. The result... so too is the answer. The Whittle video presents part of the answer, but only part of the answer. http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/truthr ... er-danger/.

Gerald, of particular importance is one of the comments made in the comment section below the FrontpageMag article that contains Whittle's video. But like Whittle's video/article it too only contains a partial answer. The comment is written by Prof. L Wessell, I have pasted it below. Prof Wessell has it partially right also, without I think, realizing it. He proceeds to explain in lovely detail part of what happened in the last 50 years, and it is in fact excellent. It just doesn't go deep enough. In the final analysis your question is why do we do what we do? The answer I have come to over time is: brief - straight forward... but not simple or easy. We are who we are because of what we believe. More to the point of your question, we do what we do because of what we believe will be the outcome of that action, but the belief, or the anticipated result always comes before the action. That is, what we expect to happen as the result of the action precedes the action and is based upon the belief that predicated the action. Cultural beliefs (how people act, and respond) are the result of tradition, and to a lesser degree in our time, on myth - fictionalized tradition. Tradition is the impression of belief upon all, but is primarily targeted toward the youth. It tells them where they came from, and broadly what is expected of them.

As I was raised in America I pretend to know little to nothing of Tahiti. So, after reflecting for a while, I looked about for some examples of long enduring traditions. I came up with two examples. Both examples are currently under concerted attack. The first is Judaism, the second is Western Civilization.

The first - Judaism - eclipses the second - Western Civilization - by almost a thousand years. How did a human backwater like the Israelites maintain cultural beliefs that transcended almost 3000 years. Three thousand years where they were either killing each other(revolts, and civil war), or being persecuted by the power de jour, including, but not limited to: Ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Hittites, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Christians, French, English, Russians, and the Nazis. Yet endure they did. How? The answer is found in the Tanak - the Jewish Bible, the Christian Bible (less 7 books), but with the books in a different order. Within the Tanak the Jews are invoked numerous times to continually tell their children where they came from; who they are; how they came to be; what they should appropriately believe, and thus what they should do. They are invoked to not just know their traditions, but to celebrate their traditions, to bring them to life daily, to live them.

The: I want what I want, and I want someone else to provide it for me is the essence of a stunted infantile development. The five year old is alive and well in all of us, most of us are educated out of it as we grow, but not socialists. Socialists believe that armed robbery is OK so long as the appropriate armed robber does the robbing. They also believe - their ultimate crime - that it is moral and justified to execute you should you resist their efforts at socialization.

I think your real question is: how do we recapture what we have apparently lost? Belief drives action. Want to change how people act, change their expectations - change what they believe. Take your children back, you are responsible for their education not some perverted bureaucrat. Teach them our American traditions of freedom, personal responsibility, industry, creativity, compassion, and generosity. After you have taught them cause them to live what they have been taught. A portion of Max Weber's the Protestant Ethic, and the Spirit of Capitalism is one of the best treatise I have ever come across regarding how we came to be - it isn't exactly short, but its well worth the read.
Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism:
Chapter 2. - http://www.marxists.org/reference/archi ... c/ch02.htm
Chapter 5. - http://www.marxists.org/reference/archi ... c/ch05.htm
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You have view the video to understand Prof L. Wessel's post as found in the comment section at: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/truthr ... er-danger/

Prof. L. Wessell • 13 hours ago
Some memories inspired by the Whittle video:

Last night (German time) I watched a show on tv on "Famous Photos" and their historical context. One photo and filming had to do with the famous planting of the American flag on Mt. Souribachi (?) during the battle for Iwo Jima (the only battle where Americans had more casualties than the Japanese--and made the use of the A-bomb a welcome possiblity). Scenes of the battle were ferocious, bravery keen, admiration great. The Marine camera man who filmed in color the raising had his story told. He died soon thereafter. A fine man and a fine model for manhood. Later last night, in a nostalgic mood, I wacthed the John Wayne film "The Sands of Iwo Jima" (1949) (I was 10 for the first viewing). Not much blood and guts in the battle scenes, sort of corney, but what an image of manhood. The soldier played by Wayne in his dying breath remembers his family and laments not being a good enough father. Boy did it feel good to be an American in 1949. An image of an upright man and praise for the family!!! Then came Whittle's video into my vision and, well, this comment is the result.

Whittle laments the vision of manhood dominating the "broad" seeking "heroes" (sic) in most shows today (at the time we just spoke of "shacking up" and today its is called "Castle"). Heck, Hop-along-Cassidy and the Lone Ranger were my first models, often enough only in radio. I do remember Whittle's examples. What happened? I, being a generation or so older than Whittle, would like to offer some background information personally lived through for any reader too young to remember those days of "manhood".

Literally, I felt a break in cultural continuity sometime in the 1960s, in the US and in Germany. What Whittle remembers as a kid, I lived through as a young adult with family. The source for the break in cultural continuity is identifiable. I suggest that the reader consult YOUTube for the ca. 23 min. video "The History of Cultural Marxism" (or turn to Whittle with a video of the same title). The heart of cultural Marxism (which was first evident for me as a finishing grad. student in America and a Fulbright scholar in Germany) stems from the Frankfurt School. The marxists there lost faith in a proletarian revolution and sought, in its place, to penetrate and change culture at all levels. Three points are particularly important. 1. What is the cultrual source of the bourgeois world to be destroyed. The family based upon heterosexual sex as a normative paradign. The cult. marx.s set out to "liberate" sex from a family context (with its demands of manhood reposibility for males) and turn it into sex, any type of sex, for pleasure >> indeed, the beginning of what I call "pansexualism", i.e, any sexual acts of any type is socially to be accepted as normative >> homosexual marriage as a wedge issue. The pill in the 60s was the mechanical means of separation, but it was cultural marxist ideology that metamorphized the separation into a new cultural force, a new normality, one damaging the Wayne vision. 2. Along with the destruction of marriage came the destruction of the self-understanding that enabled Americans to feel good about themselves, e.g., gender studies, critical theory, etc. replaced Western Culture courses. Whereas the 60s constitute the moment of penetration it was only in the 80s did it take place, i.e., "The Closing of the American Mind" (a title of a book by Prof. Allan Bloom -- a must reading to understand the 80s -> a time that drove me out of American universities into European ones). Critical theory replaced Western studies. 3. Finally the denigration of the miliarty by leftists and MSM due to the Vietnam War. All these factors contributed to the destruction of the John Wayne model of manhood.

I hope that I have not been too pedantic. I have experienced directly something that most of the younger readers have not and probably never will experience. My comments are but an attempt to cast some abstract insight into what affect my life. As a kid unto a young adult it felt good, manily, family positive to be an American. And now, we have Obama (and I prefer Germany to Obamamerica.. As Images Wayne to Obama is a rvealing contrast. It was great until the 60s. So my personal experience. I thank Whittle for the memories!

P.S. Pardon any spelling errors. I old eyes just does not see things as they once did.

Trevor wrote:One major thing that concerns me is that, indeed, history is repeating itself once again. I've talked to numerous people and realize that we are just as arrogant, just as complacent, and just as unprepared for a major attack as we were in 1941. With all the talk that China can't possibly threaten us, we said something very similar- indeed, almost word for word- against Japan, only to be proven completely wrong. Doing the same thing against China would be even more disastrous yet it appears likely.

Our current policy is assuming that war is a thing of the past, that we'll never have to fight another ground war again, so why bother preparing for it? Any comparisons I try to make about similar mistakes in the past are shot down "We're more civilized than that now" "Things are completely different" "We're so far ahead of everyone else that we're in no danger". Of course, there are others who like to say that any warning of China or anyone else is all lies.

Sadly, pretty much everyone in office at the moment care more about their political power, crushing their rivals, rewarding their cronies, and screwing everyone else over than actually attempting to do something about the very real threats we currently face. Plenty of historians criticize our decision not to mobilize and prepare for WWII sooner, but that's exactly what we're doing today. Don't forget: winter is coming.

Definite parallels. However, had the US prepared for war with Japan in 1938 it would have built more battleships and fewer aircraft carriers and perhaps lost the war. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor taught the US Navy the value of air power. Had the US Army prepared for land war too early resources would have been miss-allocated and Americans would have been spared the pleasure of having the Russians do most of the fighting & dying, and killing of Germans.

A concept of Taoism called " wei wu," is the idea of action through inaction. Of controlling a situation by not trying to control it. Of the belief that by constantly struggling and reacting against circumstances you actually move backward and create more difficulties for yourself. Sometimes it's better to lie low and collect your strength and strengthen your identity. That time has a way of revealing an enemy's weakness. It's nearly always better to counterattack. Initiating an attack will often put you at a disadvantage because it exposes your strategy and limits your options.