Takuan Seiyo sends his own take on a topic I mentioned briefly at the end of my previous post.
Happy 4th!
by Takuan Seiyo
And a reminder.
Here is “Bono Speech at Georgetown – Keeping Faith with the Idea of America.”
Bono giving a speech at Georgetown? That’s a half-literate Irish rocker speaking to an academic forum at a premier Jesuit-run American university. It was November 2012, but the theme is as pertinent as ever.
And what does Mr. Bono say from behind his trademark dark shades? Rousing words — he does have that Irish thing — and tickling the patriotic fancy of “conservatives.”
America, see, is an idea. The greatest idea since before the flushing toilet and sliced bread. The idea is that we are created equal and that life is meant to be enjoyed. And we are, all of us now, he asserts, a little American. In Mogadishu and Fallujah too, no doubt, as per widely-accepted Neocon wisdom.
Therefore, Bono asserts (full speech is here), that the United States must “prevent” budget cuts that provide for “life-saving” international aid. As the Georgetown University synopsis relays (ibid.), Herr Rock’n Professor clinches his thesis with the invincible argument that “Without U.S. aid to struggling countries, the power shift sparked by Arab Spring might not have been possible.”
Indeed, it would not have been possible. Great shifts in power have been enabled by American taxpayers’ money dispensed by the insane from Georgetown’s immediate neighborhood. Power to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Al Qaeda in Libya, Al Qaeda in Mali (with a looted Libyan arsenal, enabled by Washington nincompoops), Boko Haram in Nigeria (arsenal provenance partly like in Mali), ISIS in Iraq, barbarian Muslim lunatics in Syria, Taliban in Afghanistan, and cells of the above in Mexico or already inside the United States, sucked in with the perfect wave of “dreamers.”
Of course, the United States is as much an idea as you or I or my cat. It’s a nation: an organic entity created by and composed of a specific, unicultural people, and rooted in a specific territory. John Jay wrote in Federalist #2:
“Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.”
That this people allowed in the late 19th century to dilute itself with immigrants from other parts of Europe and a few from China and Japan is one thing, and great digestive ruptures occurred because of it, for a long time. But to go from that to self-erasure, as the case has been since 1965, and now to an engineered Camp of the Saints catastrophe, is another.
Remember this, as Neo-Marxist multiculti propaganda, global Big Biz overt agenda, the Wall Street’s Journal’s megaphone for this agenda, Democrats’ treason, Republicans’ stupidity, media-and-entertainment fostered imbecility, popular pap and cant, and the Third World’s sub-IQ moochers streaming through the open borders pull this country from under your feet. Celebrate the ravaged, dying nation, not the idea.
Takuan Seiyo is a Central European 1960s American immigrant who would not have qualified under John Jay’s definition, except on a probationary basis. Having been ethnically cleansed from California, he now resides in Japan and writes about the America he once knew. For links to his previous essays, see the Takuan Seiyo Archives.
Bono puts all his “concerned” energies in the wrong place, avoiding and denying the problem of Islam.
A black farmer whose cotton crop had been ruined once more by the boll weevil famously said, “All God’s Dangers Ain’t A White Man”.
The same truth is evident when we look at the sad state of the American body politic. Even without the opportunistic infections and tumors of Islam, the USA would still be in deep trouble. Our immune system is under attack from a number of sides. Like a human organism with AIDS, our body politic’s formerly healthy T-cells have been taken out or severely weakened.
Celebrate the ravaged, dying nation, not the idea.
I do not and will not celebrate a ravaged corpus.
I’ll stand with the others, those who are preparing to be mourners. But for the moment we’re observing a respectful death watch for a country we remember back when it was vital and sound – not perfect, but working toward the idea we shared regarding what this country meant.
Even Catholics and Jews shared that common meaning.
Even the majority of blacks shared it (with reservations) before the Dems got their demon claws into a once-dignified community, the one which strove to make America live up to her claims about justice for all.
Sadly, they were fooled into thinking the Devil would give them a free lunch; they even bought the sham idea that eating at a lunch counter would bring justice more quickly…
Islam is here only because we’re in such bad shape to begin with. Had the Communist Party not softened us up and our own communists not betrayed us, Islam wouldn’t have gained much of a toehold.
#NOFourthForMeThis Year
Absolutely correct. The same goes for the UK too.
This comment is right on the nail! The left wing nuts, of which Bono seems to be one, are definitely the primary cause of current destabilisation of society in Europe as well as in the USA.
Islam is a symptom of the problem. Islam is a function of a people, a manifestation of its practitioners’ way of perceiving the world. What came first: Islam or the people that conceived it? The problem isn’t Islam, the problem is those that promote it. Islam is their expression; and were it not Islam it would be something else that acted as Islam acts.
Re: “Celebrate the ravaged, dying nation, not the idea.”
Not the best way to put my meaning across but, think about it, nor was TJ’s “all men are created equal.” The one and the other sacrifice context and clarity for the sake of punchiness.
Did Jefferson, more aristocratic than most any European count, and a real genius who knew he was one, really believe that all men are created equal? Of course not. But the phrase meant to convey, poetically, that the United States does not condone hereditary royalty or aristocracy. Alas, we have been paying an unsustainably high price for the spurious interpretation of this famous phrase by hordes of literalist commies-in-training, from Supreme Court Justices to Mr. Bono.
Not that I belong in the same context as Jefferson, but the one thing I have in common with him is that I am a wordsmith. So if I could elect clarity over a wordsmith’s vanity I would have written “Celebrate the nation, though now ravaged and dying, but not the idea.” And remembering and celebrating the now-gone America is important, for it was a template for mankind’s best last hope .
Maybe a second best last hope will materialize in the future that will try to recreate that template that we, now aging, are so fortunate to have experienced.
What a strange speech to be honest could not make head nor tail of it – the mumbo-jumbo of Bono. As retribution maybe TS should do a walkthrough of the speech that he invited me to so painfully endure.
Is it such a slow news day that a innocuous and harmless speech by a famous Irish singer at Georgetown deserves your ire and veiled insult at things Irish? Hardly.
I see the beginnings of a potential global war, triggered by an insane theocratic megalomaniac and an insane ideology stirring in the ME and you are offended by Bono?
What qualifies and entitles you to label him half-literate? Your own [epithets redacted]? Is it [epithets]? And yes, I am Irish and ask forgiveness for my sensitivity. Irish culture and contribution to western civilization stands on its own two feet. What gives mate? Max.
@Matthew Modine, alias Robert E. Lee
I’ll let your comment stand without direct answers. I can’t answer some of your questions because modesty commands, and others because the answers are too obvious and you should really do the legwork yourself. Including reading at least 50,000 words I’ve written over the last 7 years that directly answer most of your questions, out of the nearly half million I’ve published.
Bono’s speech is not “harmless” or “innocuous.” It’s the toxin itself riding on the melliflous tones of the Pied Piper’s flute. Not that Bono meant it this way; he is totally unaware. Nor is he alone in his strange somnambulism: a commenter relayed to me that the very video I comment above here is built with great approbation into Dinesh deSouza’s “conservative” film “America,” just released. It’s also the standard theme of pretty much all mainstream “conservative” publications — from National Review to Wall Street Journal.
As to why it is toxic, you either got from my short text above or you didn’t. If you didn’t, I suggest you enlarge your reading repertoire to include a very good Fjordman essay about the fallacy of “propositional nation” that GoV published a couple years ago, as well as the Baron’s own illuminations of the subject strewn across this website.
As a parting word, I’ll give you one hint, though you should have internalized it a long time ago if you are a GoV reader:
Stop worrying about “insane theocratic megalomaniacs” and other alien agents of dystopia, doom and destruction. Start worrying about the stupidity, decadence, weakness, confusion and naivete of your (and our) own people, and the foolishness, fraud and treason of their ruling elites.
The latter is the cause; the former only a consequence.
One could give “Bono” the benefit of the doubt and regard him as a well-intentioned but seriously uniformed rock star who parlays his fame amongst the masses to promote worthy – in his view – causes. There are several difficulties with this. On a personal level Paul Hewson evidently believes himself to be a near messiah, or more precisely a Savonarola figure, deluded by the vast adoration he receives singing on stage into believing his thoughts on any issue are not just valid but compellingly correct. He also personally profits enormously from the speaking circuit: a large five figure fee, 1st class airfares and five star hotels for three nights to deliver a one hour speech.
And what thoughts does he have? Examine this:
“Without U.S. aid to struggling countries, the power shift sparked by Arab Spring might not have been possible”
Is he not cognisant of the fact the “Arab Spring” has been an utter disaster both for those living in the midst of it and more widely? Has he ever read any reports, including by African economists, that condemn foreign aid to Africa as destructive of African economic health and prospects? No, he appears to embrace the highly simplistic and timeworn formula that Western countries, and the US foremost amongst them, “should” give money to poor Africa because they are rich and Africa is not.
I would go further: it is not just Paul Hewson’s speeches that are not harmless and innocuous, Paul Hewson himself is not harmless and innocuous. Indeed he is deeply harmful. “Bono” rock star just doesn’t have a clue that this is so. He should take a leaf out of Keith Richards’ book and mind his own business. Or at least just stick to solving Ireland’s many problems. Richards in fact is a rather thoughtful man with well reasoned views on the silliness of rock stars pontificating on matters outside their sphere of competence.