A People Without Pride, Unknowing
It's nearly always a mistake for me to stop and look at the breakroom copy of The Oregonian as I head for the inevitable Wednesday morning coffee refill. Today was no exception:
Lawrence Auster of View From the Right wrote a short while ago that when he was younger and a more "mainstream" conservative supporter of the Republican Party he used to get angry when he saw Democrats and members of the press insult Republicans in the most hateful manner. However, after a while, he began to notice that despite the fact that the insults were of a variety demanding a response, the Republicans never really seemed to care much.
We've all seen this: think Senator Hatch grinning like an idiot on a Sunday morning talk show while being called a child-killing warmonger and then referring to the person who just called him a willing murderer of children for profit "my friend from across the aisle."
Auster noted that after a while it occurred to him to wonder why he should care so much about these Republicans' honor when they seemed perfectly fine with being insulted to their face. After all, if they don't care, who should?
It's a good point, and a sentiment I've long since shared, but applying it to the losers of the Stupid Party is one thing. Seeing that same sentiment writ large to one's own country and countrymen is something else entirely.
The insults to our national honor pile up so quickly that they are almost impossible to keep up with.
The Mexican president proudly declares that so far as Mexico is concerned, it has no borders and wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.
Americans: No reaction.
The Shi'ite leader in Iraq refuses to speak to or even be in the same room with Americans, who he considers filthy infidels.
Americans: No reaction.
A popular German police drama portrays the US Government as behind the attacks of 9.11 and its message is applauded by prominent members of the German government.
Americans: No reaction.
Turkish government officials praise a film depicting US soldiers in Iraq as crazed child-killers. Americans: No reaction.
The Dept of the Interior awards a contract to memorialize the heroes of Flight 93 and the central motif of the winning design is a Muslim crescent.
Americans: No reaction.
The government of China does nothing to prevent mobs of students from ransacking the exterior of the US Embassy in Beijing, leaving our diplomatic personnel prisoners and under siege for days. Americans: No reaction.
High school students in Montebello, California tear down the U.S. Flag and run the flag of Mexico up the pole to rowdy applause and supportive speeches from school administrators.
Americans: No reaction.
An American state begins using a foreign government's educational materials to teach U.S. history.
Americans: No reaction.
The President of Mexico refers to legislation in the U.S. Congress touching upon immigration as hostile, "unilateral" acts to be resisted by the government of Mexico.
Americans: No reaction.
I'd love to fight this, but after a while one gets the unsettling feeling that one would be bounding into battle without a cause, that one would turn around only to find no one at one's back. It's one thing to make speeches rallying one's countrymen to action to restore the nation and its place of honor, but what if there is no one left to hear?
It's times like this that I get a strong feeling that that ghost has already left the machine. What we see around us is nothing more than slowly decelerating motion of a society that no longer has an engine. Like that chicken selected by the farmhouse wife, it's still moving, even running, but it's not going anywhere.
That's bad enough.
What's worse is the same process that has allowed this to happen--no, that's not quite right--let's say compelled this to happen, also, by some monstrous joke, has also left the vast majority of people unable to even comprehend that anything is happening.
We have become a people without pride and a government without honor.
And we don't even realize it.
Oregon is counting on a new tool to educate Spanish-speaking students across state schools: Mexico's curriculum.
Already in place at three Oregon high schools, the programs aims to use textbooks, a detailed online Web site, DVDs and CDs provided for free by the Mexican government to teach math, science and even U.S. history to Spanish speakers in Oregon.
Conversations are under way between the Oregon Department of Education and Mexico's secretary of public education to align the curriculums of Oregon and Mexico so many courses in Mexico will be valid here and vice versa. The innovative move puts Oregon on par with other educators nationwide who have launched similar ventures in Yakima; San Diego, Calif.; and Austin, Texas.
"Students come to us with such complex issues," said Tim King, director of Clackamas Middle College and Clackamas Web Academy, where a virtual course using Mexico's learning materials got off the ground this week. "We've had to change in order to fit into each school scene, become more complex and open ourselves up to new situations."
Oregon officials say the new approach is intended as a supplement to keep students on track by learning subjects in their native language while also gaining English skills. Until now, school districts statewide have generally relied on bilingual aides to teach and translate English material or used Spanish material that was not necessarily equal to the English material mainstream students were studying.
"That's not enough," said Patrick Burk, chief policy officer with the superintendent's office of the Oregon Department of Education, adding that the goal is to "minimize disruption" for immigrant Latinos.
"The availability of resources is astounding," said Burk, who flew to Mexico with a team of Oregon curriculum officials in August to discuss making equivalency standards official. "We're able to serve the students so much better if we're working together."
Lawrence Auster of View From the Right wrote a short while ago that when he was younger and a more "mainstream" conservative supporter of the Republican Party he used to get angry when he saw Democrats and members of the press insult Republicans in the most hateful manner. However, after a while, he began to notice that despite the fact that the insults were of a variety demanding a response, the Republicans never really seemed to care much.
We've all seen this: think Senator Hatch grinning like an idiot on a Sunday morning talk show while being called a child-killing warmonger and then referring to the person who just called him a willing murderer of children for profit "my friend from across the aisle."
Auster noted that after a while it occurred to him to wonder why he should care so much about these Republicans' honor when they seemed perfectly fine with being insulted to their face. After all, if they don't care, who should?
It's a good point, and a sentiment I've long since shared, but applying it to the losers of the Stupid Party is one thing. Seeing that same sentiment writ large to one's own country and countrymen is something else entirely.
The insults to our national honor pile up so quickly that they are almost impossible to keep up with.
The Mexican president proudly declares that so far as Mexico is concerned, it has no borders and wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.
Americans: No reaction.
The Shi'ite leader in Iraq refuses to speak to or even be in the same room with Americans, who he considers filthy infidels.
Americans: No reaction.
A popular German police drama portrays the US Government as behind the attacks of 9.11 and its message is applauded by prominent members of the German government.
Americans: No reaction.
Turkish government officials praise a film depicting US soldiers in Iraq as crazed child-killers. Americans: No reaction.
The Dept of the Interior awards a contract to memorialize the heroes of Flight 93 and the central motif of the winning design is a Muslim crescent.
Americans: No reaction.
The government of China does nothing to prevent mobs of students from ransacking the exterior of the US Embassy in Beijing, leaving our diplomatic personnel prisoners and under siege for days. Americans: No reaction.
High school students in Montebello, California tear down the U.S. Flag and run the flag of Mexico up the pole to rowdy applause and supportive speeches from school administrators.
Americans: No reaction.
An American state begins using a foreign government's educational materials to teach U.S. history.
Americans: No reaction.
The President of Mexico refers to legislation in the U.S. Congress touching upon immigration as hostile, "unilateral" acts to be resisted by the government of Mexico.
Americans: No reaction.
I'd love to fight this, but after a while one gets the unsettling feeling that one would be bounding into battle without a cause, that one would turn around only to find no one at one's back. It's one thing to make speeches rallying one's countrymen to action to restore the nation and its place of honor, but what if there is no one left to hear?
It's times like this that I get a strong feeling that that ghost has already left the machine. What we see around us is nothing more than slowly decelerating motion of a society that no longer has an engine. Like that chicken selected by the farmhouse wife, it's still moving, even running, but it's not going anywhere.
That's bad enough.
What's worse is the same process that has allowed this to happen--no, that's not quite right--let's say compelled this to happen, also, by some monstrous joke, has also left the vast majority of people unable to even comprehend that anything is happening.
We have become a people without pride and a government without honor.
And we don't even realize it.
