So I thought I’d try my hand at a motivational, neocon type essay. I offer it for comment, especially on the one issue still bothering me, which I will mention later.
In the wake of the recent attacks, I want to say that reconstruction is possible even after a collapse like that of the World Trade Center. Only cowards abandon their own cause, and that cowardice will continue to take effect and spread like an insidious drop of poison. And then the realization dawns that it is better, if necessary, to accept a horrible but sudden end than to bear horrors without end.
For now the time has come when talk is not enough. For once, action has to be taken. For ultimately, only action can force men under its spell.
And if people say to me, "Yes, but think of the consequences!" my reply is, "The consequences will not be worse than if no action is taken."
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, we have but a single pain, that not all of those who should be here with us are, that a number of our very best, most loyal and most zealous public servants have not lived to see the goal for which they sacrificed. However, they too are present in spirit in our ranks, and in eternity they will know that their sacrifice was not in vain.
The blood that they shed has become the baptismal water of the new America.
Over the past decade, it is with profound distress that millions of the best American men and women from all walks of life have seen the unity of the nation vanishing away, dissolving in a confusion of political and personal opinions, economic interests, and ideological differences. America has presented a picture of heartbreaking disunity.
But that disunity has ended.
Thus, let us look back in this new America upon that which lies behind us and do so in the most distant future, too, and let us bear in mind one article of faith: We shall be resolved at all times to take action! Willing at all times, if necessary, to die! Never willing to capitulate.
Above us all stands the motto: "No one in the world will help us if we do not help ourselves." This is a different program from that of previous administrations, who continually ran round through the world, going a-begging now at the UN, then in Saudi Arabia, now in Moscow or at some conference or other elsewhere. It is a prouder thing that today we Americans are determined to solve our own problems and to help ourselves
We will all have to be fighters! For there are still many, many opponents of America. They do not want America to be strong. They do not want our people to be united. They do not want our people to defend its honor. They do not want our people to be free.
They may not want it, but we want it, and our will shall defeat them! We shall ensure that the times that now require these sacrifices will never again, within human power, return in America!
The inheritance that has fallen to us is a terrible one. The task with which we are faced is the hardest that has fallen to American statesmen within the memory of man. But we are all filled with unbounded confidence for we believe in our people and their imperishable virtues.
The Federal Government should regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and co-operation. It should preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built.
What about those who now cry out for peace? I proclaim that the American is either the first soldier in the world or he is no soldier at all. We cannot be no soldiers at all, and we do not wish to be. Therefore we shall be only the first. As one who is a lover of peace I say we should endeavor to create for the American people such an army and such weapons as are calculated to convince others, too, to seek peace.
And what about those who complain that our new security measures go too far? I am sure that the government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures. The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one.
Not bad, huh?
But, as I mentioned, just one little thing is nagging me about my essay: It almost entirely is composed of quotes from the speeches of Adolf Hitler.
I just added in a couple of connecting sentences, and changed "Germany" to "America," "Versailles" to "UN," and so on.
Should this bother me? I guess not. We need new role models for our new America.
A rhetorical footnote: A common trope, fundamental to the persuasiveness of the ideal type, "fascist motivational speech," is the portrayal of one’s own nation as an exemplar of goodness itself, while the enemy is seen as the devil’s own forces incarnate. A primary difference between Marxist and fascist totalitarianism is that while Marxists designate an international class (the proletariat) as the bearer of the divine stamp of approval, the fascists highlight a particular nation (and especially its predominant ethnic/racial group) as the divine designee. Both are forms of idolatry.
October 30, 2001
2001, Gene Callahan
Gene Callahan/Stu Morgenstern Archives
The Truth Needs Your Support Please make a donation to help us tell it, no matter what nefarious plans Leviathan has.
