How did we get here? Were we not paying attention? If we weren’t, was it because we were so proud and grateful to be Americans in the best country on the planet that being destroyed from within was never a thought to the decent among us?
The late 1940s and 1950s demonstrated post-war, optimistic growing families buying homes in the suburbs and buying a car to park in that one-car garage. Kids could walk safely to school and play around the neighborhood without parental supervision then come home to a sit-down family dinner.
Yes, there were warts and worse.
Families are comprised of humans and humans are flawed, but there was a prevailing allegiance to America’s flag, the Star Spangled Banner and the Judeo-Christian ethics our founding fathers wrote into our historical documents.
In the same hindsight, the 1960s Vietnam War was more detrimental than we realized at the time. The flood gates burst open with the reality of anti-Americanism in our collective face.
Two positives of that period were the civil rights movement and the space program. For the latter, people were proud and in awe of both a colossal venture and adventure.
The civil rights movement was overdue. The curtains had to be pulled back to look at ourselves and our neighbors. It was necessary to learn that we all had the same wants and needs, including belonging, be it in a neighborhood or a school… everywhere. It was about getting a job, properly educating the children and exercising the freedoms America offered.
Especially in honor of this Black History Month, recalling the bravery of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. is awe-inspiring. It’s arduous to intellectually grasp their raw courage and tenacity of their convictions.
King’s speeches were mesmerizing, insightful and clearly heart-felt. Both men met their demise as a result of the worst part of the country then. Whether it was hate, fear, ignorance, intolerance or a mixture; it was and remains a toxic recipe.
We need frequent reminders today of Dr. King’s insightful and pertinent words. His quotes are striking and valuable for any generation. They are wholly worthy of review.
Concurrent with the distractions of high-profile murders, including the Kennedy brothers, a dangerous and anti-American onslaught was infecting our colleges, now leaching into the high school and the elementary grades.
The anti-Empire Bill Ayers’ first endeavor was leading Students for a Democratic Society. He then founded Weather Underground, a “self-described Communist revolutionary group.”
An FBI History site tells of WU’s anti-American radical activities of these domestic terrorists. Under the guise of Vietnam War protesting, they declared “social” change.
Sound familiar?
WU executed bombings at locations like the U.S. Capital, the Pentagon and an Oakland, California, induction center. A police sergeant died in a San Francisco Police Station bombing.
Ayers later became a college professor devouring and warping the minds of the unsuspecting. Incredibly, he holds a designation as “distinguished professor.”
Ayers is retired but thousands of his injurious leftist clones dominate classrooms today. Saul Alinsky’s 12 Rules for Radicals are fully operating in our America.
Now, 50 years later, our colleges are mere fulcrums of caterwauling. They are structures of one-sided beliefs, total intolerance of anything not identical to them, with teddy bears and cocoa to comfort those offended and with promises of a deserved ideal, hardship-free world with a life of no personal responsibility.
Yes, cotton balls wholly unprepared for a bowling ball world; a world that is arguably crueler than ever.
Contradiction of “Yay-Yay-USA” exists right here in Santa Clarita with an elected school official who takes great pleasure in foisting a communistic gesture while the Pledge of Allegiance is recited. Obviously this is OK with those voters, irrespective of the negative effects on students.
If an elected school official introduced an equally passionate or God-related ceremonial gesture, guaranteed there would be marches, frenetic protests and bedlam.
The degradation has expanded to human life having no meaning.
Presently, some states are making laws permitting painfully poisoning a viable human being then ripping it piece by piece from the mother’s womb even if it’s entering the birth canal. It’s all in the name of “women’s rights” and “control of my body.”
Idiotically, that “control” commences nine months too late.
At a 2018 fundraiser for The Lady Parts Justice League, “comedian” Sarah Silverman said, “If anything has ever made me want to eat an aborted fetus, it’s this (pro-life) law.” She then went into a long F-word tirade.
Unmistakably, Silverman and her sisterhood do not read Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Betty Arenson is a Santa Clarita resident. “Right Here, Right Now” appears Saturdays and rotates among several local Republicans.
