Mourning For America

American Flags 2014

Have you ever mourned for America?  All over this country, there are tens of millions of Americans that still deeply love the United States and that are deeply saddened by how far this nation has fallen.  Recently, I posted an article comparing the America of the 1970s to the America of today, and it really struck a nerve.  Those that grew up in the 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s remember how great life in America was back then, and large numbers of them are absolutely disgusted with what America has become today.  We have abandoned our values and the principles that this nation was founded upon, and the consequences of doing this are manifesting in our society in thousands of different ways.  The very foundations of our once great nation are rotting and decaying at a staggering rate, and the entire structure may soon collapse.  Around the world, many will celebrate the downfall of America, but I will not.  Like millions of other patriotic Americans, I still deeply love this nation and I mourn for what has been lost.

Of course there are countless others that feel the exact same way.  A friend of mine, former police chief Dennis Evers, said that I could share some excerpts from a piece that he recently authored.  As a Baby Boomer, he remembers very clearly what life in America used to be like, and he is very sad that his children and his grandchildren will never get the chance to experience it…

It was an honor to be bestowed the duty of leading the pledge of allegiance at school. A flag that our dads, neighbors and family members had recently fought and died for. My dad rarely talked about the war, most soldiers who saw real action didn’t. He did tell me once about being on Saipan and going to the latrine only to return to find the soldier he was sleeping next to dead with his throat slashed by an enemy guerilla.

When it came to sports, everyone played outside, every moment they could, like in “Sandlot”. We kept score and if you or your team sucked, you sucked it up. I always dreaded being called last when the classes’ most popular students chose sides for dangerous games like “dodge ball” but you learned early on that life was full of disappointment.

The playgrounds had actual steel equipment, things like towering swings and slides and merry go rounds and teeter totters, all death traps, but what a ride.

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I remember my dad bought a 57 Plymouth station wagon that held 8 (it must have for us to go to grandmas some 2500 miles away with all six kids). The back seat faced rearward and the entire rear window rolled down, leaving half of the back wide open so my little brother and I could breath those lead rich exhaust fumes for weeks on end. There were no such things as seat belts, and the dash was soft steel, loaded with pointy metallic knobs. In the event of a crash, mom would stick her arm out to prevent you from flying through the windshield. I remember roughhousing with my brother once and the door opened up and he rolled out, fortunately we were only doing 35 so mom pulled over and went back and retrieved him (true story). At the gas station, you were greeted with a smile, and at .28 cents a gallon, you would cheerfully get your windows washed, oil, radiator and tires checked, a free map and some S&H green stamps, that you could save (and eventually lick) so your mom could get a new iron or mixer. Sodas and large candy bars were a nickel, and I remember when a new place called “Taco Bell” opened up and everything was .18 cents.

Entertainment consisted of 3 TV channels, all at the whim of the antenna. Often, the 200 pound television set would be on a TV tray with spindly metal legs, or teetering on some other piece of furniture. Cartoons, were great, had heroes and villains, and a moral. Comedy was funny, not dirty. In fact the married couple in the Dick Van Dyke show slept in separate beds.

Crime wasn’t an issue; you could go downtown any time day or night and not worry about it.

Patriotism was a good thing. We were proud of America, proud to be Americans.

We were taught to remove our hat when the pledge of allegiance was recited. We were taught to cover our heart with our hand when the flag presented itself in a parade or other patriotic ceremony. We gave thanks before every meal.

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I am deeply saddened that my Children and grandchildren will not know what an exceptional, wonderful, powerful, inventive, creative, generous, fiscally responsible country America used to be, not always perfect or right, but always trying to be better.

But you don’t have to have been born in the United States to experience this sense of loss.

Recently, I was sent an excerpt from an interview with a high level defector from Communist Romania named Ion Mihai Pacepa.  The following is what Wikipedia had to say about him…

Ion Mihai Pacepa (Romanian pronunciation: [iˈon miˈhaj paˈt͡ʃepa]; born 28 October 1928 in Bucharest, Romania) is a former two-star general in the Securitate, the secret police of Communist Romania, who defected to the United States in July 1978. He is the highest-ranking defector from the former Eastern Bloc, and has written several books and news articles on the inner workings of the communist intelligence services.

At the time of his defection, General Pacepa simultaneously had the rank of advisor to President Nicolae Ceauşescu, acting chief of his foreign intelligence service and a state secretary of Romania’s Ministry of Interior. He defected to the United States after President Jimmy Carter’s approval of his request for political asylum.

Subsequently, he worked with the American Central Intelligence Agency in various operations against the former Eastern Bloc. The CIA described his cooperation as “an important and unique contribution to the United States”.

Pacepa loved America even before he came here, and now he is deeply saddened that we are steadily heading down the same path that absolutely destroyed his nation…

President Obama has indeed bought into the siren call of Marxism, as I myself once did, along with millions others like me around the world—even including former President Reagan—when we were young and innocent. But President Obama did not come to power following a KGB coup. He was brought in the White House by 65,182, 692 Americans who were proud that the U.S. had become mature enough to elect a black president, and who fell in love with his redistribution of wealth. In my other life, at the top of Communist Romania, we proudly called this redistribution of wealth Marxism. Today, however, it is considered bad manners to even pronounce that word, because Marxism had transformed a third of the world into a feudal society in the middle of the XX century.

Pacepa can hardly believe that Americans are willingly choosing to embrace the same political philosophy that he once risked his life to defeat in Romania…

Here I would only say that thirty five years ago I paid with two death sentences for helping my native Romania, at that time the epitome of Marxism, to stop thinking of Marxism as a boon bestowed from on high. Now a new generation of Americans, who have no longer been taught real history in schools, along with most of the people belonging to the 47% of households paying no taxes, became fascinated by Marx’s utopia “to each according to his need.” Millions of Americans cheered. Some electoral gatherings looked like Ceausescu’s revival meetings—over eighty thousand people were assembled in front of the now famous faux-Greek temple resembling the White House that had been erected in Denver. They were, of course, galvanized by the prospect that a new administration would force rich Americans to pay a part of their own health care, mortgages, loans and school tuition.

As I was writing this article, I remembered a video entitled “Mourning In America” that has been viewed on YouTube nearly a million times.  If you have not seen it yet, you can find it right here.  We were once a land that embraced liberty, freedom and free market capitalism, but now our nation is being transformed into something radically different.

So does that mean that we have lost?

Is there any hope for the future?

Those are some very interesting questions.  Without a doubt, things certainly do not look good.  But that does not mean that we should ever give up trying to do what is right.  In a recent article, Charles Hugh Smith offered some suggestions on how we can keep from losing the battle…

1. If we believe that debt is inevitable, they have won and we have lost.

2. If we believe that what we wear, buy, drive, display and consume defines our identity and place in the world, they have won and we have lost.

3. If we believe that we express ourselves through what we buy, consume, display and own, then we have entered a state of permanent insecurity and adolescence; they have won and we have lost.

4. If we believe that without its Empire, America would perish, they have won and we have lost.

5. If the “news” leaves us fearful, anxious, frustrated and angry, they have won and we have lost.

6. If we believe that being connected to and consuming digital media during every waking hour is not just necessary but desirable as a display of coolness and status, they have won and we have lost.

7. If we believe fast food and packaged food is cheap, tasty and convenient, they have won and we have lost.

8. If we believe we would perish without a payment from the Central State, they have won and we have lost.

9. If we believe that measures such as the unemployment rate and gross domestic product (GDP) are meaningful metrics, they have won and we have lost.

10. If we believe that our identity and self-expression flow from our membership in various “tribes” defined by signifiers such as sports team logos, corporate logos, tattoos, programs and music we consume, brands and other consumables, they have won and we have lost.

11. If we believe the America of today is the perfection of all that is good about America rather than the suppression of all that is good about America, they have won and we have lost.

12. If we believe that learning and intellectual accomplishment are to be scorned as “elitist,” they have won and we have lost.

13. If we believe that health results from consuming handfuls of pills, they have won and we have lost.

14. If we believe it is normal to transfer the vast majority of our earnings to the state and a handful of crony-capitalist cartels, they have won and we have lost.

You can read the rest of his excellent article right here.

So what would you add to his list?

And what would you say to those that are mourning for America?

Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…

About the author: Michael T. Snyder is a former Washington D.C. attorney who now publishes The Truth. His new thriller entitled “The Beginning Of The End” is now available on Amazon.com.

The Beginning Of The End - The New Novel About The Future Of America By Michael T. Snyder
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