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Whitaker's Current Articles August 21, 2004
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August 21, 2004 --
New York City Provincialism
August 21, 2004 --
Time Provincialism
August 21, 2004 --
"All Is Lost"
August 21, 2004 --
College-Made Liberals on the Left, Whining Cowards on the Right
August 21, 2004 --
News Flash: Tomorrow is Coming Anyway
August 21, 2004 --
What is Our Big Advantage?
August 21, 2004 --
You Want to Talk Catastrophes? Lemme Tell You About a Catastrophe
Fun Quote:
They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
I doubt it.
How can the Devil build a road with something he doesn't have?
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New York City Provincialism
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Today no one is surprised when you say, "He is a New York City provincial." But when I was growing up in the 50's New York was sophisticated and everyone else was provincial. To say that a New Yorker could be provincial was exactly like saying that the pope was a Methodist.
Today we all understand that the idea that New Yorkers had that New Yorkers are sophisticated and everybody else is a rube is the most extreme form of provincialism possible. All real rubes think everybody else is different from the real thing, and the real thing is them, just like the New Yorkers did. That's what provincialism IS. But back then all the television networks were based in New York, all the editorial outlets were based in New York, all the publishing was based in New York.
So all the Great Minds said New York was sophisticated and everybody else was a rube.
In the 1950's when a country boy went to New York he adopted a New York City attitude to show he was no longer a provincial.
You are thinking, "What could be more provincial than that attitude?" I said the same thing back then, but nobody understood what I was talking about.
Today I have exactly the same problem explaining time provincialism that I had in the 1950's explaining New York City provincialism. Today people talk about "Modern Ideas" as if that meant something special.
Today people will say, "This is the twenty-first century so what you say is wrong" in exactly the same way the pope told Galileo that his idea that the earth was not the center of the universe was wrong. The pope told Galileo, "You are going against Church dogma."
Today people tell anyone who thinks a social policy is just plain wrong that, "This is 2004. Your ideas are out of date."
Does that mean that, in the year 2004, we have the Absolute Truth at last? Well, if a person quotes the calendar as proof that his ideas are right, that is exactly what he means: This is right, not because it makes sense, but because it is Modern.
The right wing version of Time Provincialism is, "I think America is doomed."
So what is that supposed to mean? The next generation is still going to be born. Tomorrow is going to come. I understand what people mean when they say, "You are going against Church dogma."
I even understand what people mean when they say, "The ideas of 2004 are the True Ideas." People said exactly the same thing in 1904. People said exactly the same thing in 1804.
But what does "All is lost" mean?
What is this "All" that is "lost"?
I don't see any "All" that we have that is worth keeping.
I am not a conservative because I don't see that there is a hell of a lot to conserve. But right wingers keep repeating that we have lost this wonderful "All" we have right now.
Is this wonderful "All" the Spirit of Self-Sacrifice and the Family Values and the Work Ethic we used to have?
Let me tell you a little secret: If the last generation had all that Spirit of Self-Sacrifice and Loyalty and Family Values you are wailing about, the new generation would have them too.
This Great America that had this "All" is being overrun by immigration. I didn't see any of the people who were supposed to have these wonderful values raise a finger to stop all that from happening.
I repeat: What is this "All" that is "lost"?
College-Made Liberals on the Left, Whining Cowards on the Right
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We are experiencing catastrophe after catastrophe. This is the heritage of the moral cowardice of the group that calls itself the Greatest Generation.
That Greatest Generation backed down instantly at every movement that labeled itself civil rights or social progress or education. That Greatest Generation marched its children off to be indoctrinated by leftist faculties at public expense and did not raise a finger to stop it.
Why? Well, that leftist indoctrination called itself "Education" and the leftists shouted that you had better pay for a leftist indoctrination in the name of Education or you were against "academic freedom." It would have taken moral courage to refuse to obey them, and the group that calls itself the Greatest Generation never had an ounce of moral courage.
The group that calls itself the Greatest Generation produced legions of leftist kids, but they also produced the dyspeptic old right wingers who whine, "All is lost!" They are moral cowards in the same tradition. They are the legitimate descendants of the Greatest Generation just like the legions of college-indoctrinated leftists are.
In any catastrophe, there are people who stand and deal with it and there are people who run around in circles screaming "All is lost!" Those who run around screaming are not just pathetic cry-babies, they are dangerous.
We have a catastrophe here. Do we run around in a circle screaming "All is lost!" or do we deal with it?
News Flash: Tomorrow is Coming Anyway
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News Flash: Tomorrow is Coming Anyway
During a catastrophe, a sane man thinks: 1) What do we have left? and 2) What can we do in this new situation?
During a catastrophe, what does a sane man do about the people running around in circles screaming, "All is lost!"? Does he sympathize with them? Does he say they are good folks and try to persuade them there is hope? Or does he go ahead and deal with the problem in front of him while he waits for the panicky people to stop wetting their pants and follow his example?
The only time a brave person has while the panickers are running around screaming is to do his job. When it comes to the people running around screaming, all he has time for is a quick slap in the face.
Whitaker Online is constant slap in the face to the "All is lost!" crowd. In the meantime, us grownups have work to do.
If we stop shrieking and start thinking, we will realize that a lot of the "Oh, God, all is lost!" problems will solve themselves.
For example, right wingers whine, "What about the growing minority vote? We are being OVERWHELMED! Oh, all is lost, all is lost!"
Votes are critical in a democracy. But there has never been a multiracial democracy in all of history and there never will be. In Iraq Saddam Hussein's minority took the helm. In Yugoslavia Tito's Serb minority took over.
We are being overwhelmed by minorities. So our future will not be democratic.
The group that called itself the Greatest Generation said it Saved the World and lost it. The group that calls itself the Greatest Generation declared that it saved democracy and lost it. That is the tomorrow their moral cowardice left us, and that is the world we will have to live in.
What is Our Big Advantage?
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When minority groups get together, all they talk about is white people.
I remember an incident in Africa. It happened when the newly independent black countries decided they had to have black pilots for their airlines. So they put on a few black co-pilots as a start. Whites in Africa did not object. They knew there was a white pilot up there and the black man could land the plane in an emergency.
It was the black passengers who walked off the plane. Black equality was wonderful theory, but they were not about to go up in a plane that had a black man up front.
Black "leaders" were horribly embarrassed when, in the wake of 9/11, whites slavishly accepted the Politically Correct doctrine that Arabs should not be singled out for search when they got on the airline, but blacks said, "No way!" Blacks universally accepted the abstract idea that "profiling" was Evil when it applied to them, but they were eager to accept the Evil of profiling when it meant they would not be killed in a hijacked plane.
They were right. Then things get serious, leftism is suicide. When things get serious, you talk turkey.
In a crisis, everybody looks around for someone who is tall and blond. That is reality.
In a crisis no one looks around for someone who is tall and blond and screaming, "All is lost!"
I was raised in a society that was an outpost of white supremacy and where the majority was black. It was a very rough society, the exact opposite of the Yuppie ideal we have today, the ideal of the moral cowards and the "All is lost!" right-wingers.
How will we reverse the catastrophe we have right now? Maybe we should look to people who dealt with this same situation in the past.
You Want to Talk Catastrophes? Lemme Tell You About a Catastrophe
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You Want to Talk Catastrophe? Lemme Tell You About a Catastrophe!
In 1865 we South Carolinians had lost the Civil War, big time. Our young manhood, a whole generation, had been decimated. Former Confederates were denied the right to vote. The majority of South Carolina's population was black and they had been given the vote.
"All is lost!"
On top of that we were occupied by the Federal Army under the Radical Republicans. That occupation lasted twelve years. Thousands of Yankee carpetbaggers came South with a license to steal and Federal bayonets and black votes to work with.
"All is lost!"
Seeing that all was lost for the South, thousands of Southern scalawags joined the majority black vote and the Federal occupation troops and the carpetbaggers.
"All is lost!"
Not only that, but we faced the majority of the ruling Yankee vote that was against us.
You see, the Yankees had their Greatest Generation, too. Millions of Yankees had Saved the Union just as the Greatest Generation Saved the World. They and their families hated us.
"All is lost!"
Looking at that situation, I would not see any hope either. But my grandfather, who later became a Methodist circuit riding preacher, joined the Redshirts anyway. The Redshirts took on the hopeless task of taking South Carolina back.
Not only did we take it back, but South Carolina became a bastion of white supremacy.
My heritage is NOT the heritage of whining the Greatest Generation left behind.
Maybe you should stop listening to the conservatives and the sophisticates and the Prophets of Doom.
Maybe you should start listening to Old Bob, a man who says, "This is familiar territory. We have been here before. Now let's get to work."
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