During the 2000 presidential election, a local carpenter was working on the exterior of my house: roof, some painting, etc. He came into to ask me about something, as always I was listening to two radios, there was a debate being replayed between the two presidential candidates: George W. Bush, son of the infamous Bush 41 and grandson of the infamous Senator Bush, and John Kerry, the ketchup king, richest person in Congress (just bought an $8 million dollar yacht in New Zealand, and tried to evade payment of $430,000 of Massachuessets taxes, he is reportedly worth $139 million, mostly because of his advantageous marriages). The repairman said to me, “who is that talking?” I said, “they are the presidential candidates.” He had no idea what I was talking about, admitted later that he knew nothing at all about politics or anything else. He said, “I just try to survive from day to day.” So it is with many Americans, enjoying the bounty of this free country, yet knowing nothing at all about how or why they have freedom.
Who is the greatest failure: the parents, the schools, or the community? Most of the uniformed have never been inside a church, their God is their belly, never read a book, never watch anything but trash on television, their world ends at the city limits. It was 9/11 2001, tomorrow we remember that morning. A black secretary was going through some notes as she and I prepared to send out information to various auction houses about some of my antiquarian collections. I have a television in my office, but it is not usually on, we need to concentrate on our work. On this particular morning, it was on, and I was aware of the catastrophe from the time it began.
I brought the matter to her attention and she described the picture to me on the set. I said to her, “this is the greatest tragedy on the American soil, I know people who work in those buildings. No telling how many have died.” This black woman, mother of three children, a part-time worker for me and the local post office, jumped up and began to dance around. I said, “what is wrong with you?” She said, “I so despise those people in New York, I lived there as a small child.” The thought occurred to me, “hatred is hatred”, whether here in my office or in the skies above Manhattan. That was the last day she ever worked for me. I believe she still works for the postal service even though she has much hatred for the postal service, and as we all know, hatred by Muslims for Americans did not end on that day. It is probably greater now than then.
Whether the attack on Pearl Harbor, which we know was not a surprise. Whether the assassination of President Kennedy, which we know was not a surprise. Whether the attack at Ruby Ridge, the Davidian compound at Waco, the Oklahoma City bombing, which we know was corrupted by federal compromise. And, although there are many unanswered questions and suspicions about the 9/11 episode, we know that America is undergoing a dark night of the soul.
Political expediency, political correctness, has caused a closing in the American mind. Elected politicians, local, state, and federal care nothing for this blood-bought country, only their reelection. They have successfully boarded the gravy trains, they do not want to approach any bumps, tilts, or curves along the way. They want to be called “honorable”, but for most of them, there is nothing honorable about them. Maybe all are not as flagrant in their corruption as Obama, Pelosi, Franks, Wrangle, Waters, and in North Carolina Easley, and the “Hunt” machine. When Americans awaken to what is going on, it just may be too late.
Is it strange to you, that since WWII, America has not been able to win a war? We are now in our 8th year in Afghanistan, I have traveled through this desperately poor, remote country several times. Afghanistan does not own a tank or plane, only a few paved roads in the cities. Compared to our standards, the people lived in squalor. From Amritsar, India I slipped into Banyon, Afghanistan many years ago to photograph the great Buddhas in the mountain sides (the ones that the Taliban destroyed). I never heard the sounds of vehicles, planes, trains, the only sound you ever heard was a call to prayer from Muslim mosques.
I stayed once at a hotel in Turkey, the best hotel in the city, the facility was desperate, more or less just sparse wood floors and windows and mats on which you slept. (When I use the word “sparse” coming from the farm home where I was raised in eastern NC, you know that it was a poverty stricken place.) But, even though there were no other sounds in the city: vehicles, etc. There was the ever sounding call-to-prayer, and all the beauty of the city involved the mosque.
These are the people we are up against: devoted, committed Islamists. Theirs is a religion of absolute obedience, not peace, not persuasion, you either believe and submit or die. They do not mind calling you an infidel, if you do not submit to their tyranny. In the closed American mind, a mind tainted by tolerance of everything, it seems perfectly permissible to the spoiled, soft, liberal ideology that 9 Christian missionaries can be killed in Afghanistan with hardly a whisper about it by news commentators, and yet a cartoon can cause an international uproar. A shade tree preacher in Florida can threaten to burn copies of the Koran, and there is a international clamor even from the President, secretary of state, members of Congress, and even the General on the field of battle.
So easily we forget the thousands killed, not only in the 9/11 event, both in Manhattan and other places, but the thousands killed since, supporting a hit-and-go war against Islamic extremists around the world. Terrorism does not have a conscience, children in Bali, children in Egypt or Israel, are as precious as children on the subway in London.
A former marine, young black man, home from the war in Iraq, working for me part-time, told me (and he was sincere when he told me this, because I as asking him about his survival), “I think I survived because I was a black marine.” I said, “I don't understand all that, so many blacks are Muslims, most prisoners when they come out of jail in America are Muslim, there are so many restraints on your activities as a Muslim. (sex, drinking, smoking) But I particularly found that they hate and kill one another (Sunni, Shiah, Kurds).
There was a time when Americans were sure of themselves, sure of their constitution, sure of this democratic republic. We were the example to the world, protecting our borders...providence a sacred trust. Christ describes the man who built his house on a rock, when the storms came, the house survived, this compared to the house built in the sand, when the wind and rain and other desperate weather measure descended, the house fell. (Matthew 7) Politically, religiously, academically, in every way, we need to get back on the rock on our salvation reinforced by the faith that has kept us a free people.
Open my eyes that I may see,
glimpses of truth thou hast for me;
Places in my hands the wonderful key
that shall unclasp and set me free.
- Open My Eyes, That I May See – Clara Scott.
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