Saturday, April 14, 2007
Gathering of Eagles
The past few days, during discussions with my new GOE associates some thoughts have been percolating and it seems appropriate that I should put them down here.
This is an answer to Why GOE?
To most of the people I have been talking to lately this might seem a dumb question. Well, maybe not. All involved in the germination of this project have an understanding on some level in their own minds as to Why GOE? Some of these are complex, some simple, some from the intellect, some from the gut. Here, briefly stated, is my thought.
The American people want, whether they consciously know it or not, to be intimately connected with the "real" thing, by which I mean something greater than themselves as individuals. Duty, honor, truth, courage, crowned by liberty. Those are "real" things in the deepest most spiritual sense. Given proper leadership people will weld themselves to action that will rekindle these.
Everyone remembers the image of Pres. Bush, his arm around a grunged up firefighter standing on a pile of rubble at the WTC. All easily recall what he said that day and how a special kind of energy ran forth from that moment and instantly crossed the nation and informed a national purpose with a very special resolve. Where I live seemingly every vehicle and home instantly sprouted American flags.
An image like the one of which we speak, of course, awakens in our breast feelings that feed on these sentiments. People were first filled with dread, anger, fear, yes, even guilt and self loathing. But with one image, one simple phrase, these instantly gave way to courage, duty, honor and the like.
We literally swell up when duty calls and we can, following our conscience, find honor in a courageous act that further enshrines liberty in the hearts and minds of all who will follow her light.
A terrible resolve went forth that day and the world trembled at the thought of coming retribution. But, alas, this resolve has waned at the same pace as a diminishing national leadership. In this leadership vacuum opposing forces have taken the stage and pose an existential threat internally as grave as the external threat from Islamofascism.
It is the need to counter this internal threat that is the impetus for GOE. GOE is an answer to a need that is in the air for this kind of renewal.
Absent adequate leadership at the top we, the people, must provide it from the bottom. Our very existence as a nation depends on whether an enduring and terrible resolve to advance the cause of freedom can be rekindled.
The fire burns low precisely because, bombarded with negative images and associated negative tag lines, people become bewildered, lost, purposeless. People respond to images. It is in the fabric of our society. We are oriented to and from what we see. The failure of our leadership is in their inability to sustain the propagation of images and POSITIVE tag lines contrary to the daily drumbeat of the mainstream, liberal, defeatist, essentially soulless enemies of victory over tyranny. These are the blame America first crowd. All are apologists for those external threats of Islamofascism, Communism, and the like. They will fight for nothing. And, essentially are nothing in their nihilistic, atheistic solipsism. Their highest achievement in life is a kind of banal or vapid political correctness. This and their guilt and self loathing as seen in their perpetual anguish for minority rights becomes the apotheosis of their self invention as multiculturalists. What is lost is allegiance to something greater than the self. There is no "greater than the self". The self, for the moonbat, is centered everywhere, bounded nowhere.
This is the enemy within. He is a statist, a fascist, but thinks, knows, those who oppose him are these things. Until he is utterly vanquished it will be difficult to face external threats.