Last night, I was informed that the NFL will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, the so-called black national anthem, before every game next year. The newest federal holiday is Juneteenth (June 19), officially dubbed the “Juneteenth National Independence Day” – close enough in the calendar to compete with July 4. With all the kneeling and disrespect to the flag and national anthem, statue toppling, and renaming of schools to shame the once-revered, we are substituting symbols of national unity and meaning with ethnic and racial anthems and independence days. We are heading to a frightful place.
Where did all this come from? It seemed to happen nearly overnight. There was no groundswell for it. All of a sudden, we’ve got players, coaches, and team owners kneeling at the national anthem. NBA players, living the lifestyle of King Midas (think Lebron James, Stephen Curry, et al), are lecturing the rest of us on our moral failings. MLB got into the act with both feet.
That’s just professional sports. The uber-rich are now linking arms with the uber-left. The Fortune 500 are routinely running shaming and indoctrination sessions for their employees. If you’re a Republican who’ll blast Trump – think Liz Chaney (R, Wy.) – your reelection coffers will be brimming with cash. Most commonly, the money spigot from the Sorors types will be turned wide open for lefties in local DA races to the top of the political food chain, Dem candidates for the presidency. Mediocrities like “Beto” O’Rourke can quickly become a player.
Big Money, Big Sports, Big Business, Big Media, Big Entertainment, and Big Government are lining up to shove down our throats an extremist ideology, one that only yesterday was relegated to the rantings of college snowflakes. America as we knew her is quickly disappearing, to be replaced by a gaggle of warring tribes.
Don’t blame the George Floyd incident for it. There’s no evidence that Chauvin was a racist; he’s just a bad cop, an equal-opportunity abuser. Blame the ubiquitous connectivity of the ever-present cell phone and its instant feed into the digestive tract of our cultural big-everythings.
But ultimately, the culpability lies with the ignorance, perfidy, status-groveling nature, and extreme social isolation of many of our cultural heavies, ensconced as they are in their gated villas and penthouses in swank, bi-coastal bastions. They’ve abandoned America, and now they are force-feeding the hot mess to the rest of us. Sad, oh so very sad.
RogerG